The Heart’s Desire
by Padfoot Lives
Summary: AUAU. Harry Potter is looking for The Heart’s Desire. But it’s difficult to do that when Ron’s a droid, Luna’s given herself an extra limb, the Aurors are trying to hunt him down, and, worst of all, there’s Hermione, a nuisance and thorough distraction…
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **I don't own many of the character names or many of the place names. Let's make this simpler, actually: anything you find familiar? Not mine. But I completely own the plot, the situations, and some of the random names thrown in here.

**Summary: **AU/AU. Harry Potter is looking for The Heart's Desire. But it's a little difficult to do that when Ron's a droid with a superiority complex, Luna's accidentally given herself an extra limb, the Galactic Aurors are trying to hunt him down, and—worst of all—there's Hermione, a nuisance Harry really can't afford to put up with…

**Author's Note (A/N): **I fully intend to finish "Old Sins" soon. The explanation for why I haven't yet posted anything more is a bit of a spoiler for Book 7, so it's at the very bottom of this page._  
_

Right. So _this_ story will be about five or six chapters, and will be a little… er… odd. I'm writing this because one of my best friends asked me to. She wanted me to write—and I quote—"something_ different_ and _funny_, involving outer space and Harry as a pirate on the run from the law".

_Ahem._

The more I thought about it, the more these utterly random ideas flickered into my head, and out of that loose and rather… er… bizarre outline, came… this. I've tried keeping everyone in character—essentially, anyway—wherever I could, but given the situations I've had to put them into, that's proven downright impossible in some places.

This really is completely different from anything I've ever written before, so please review and let me know what you think.

* * *

… 

…

**His Heart's Desire**

…

…

**Chapter One**

…

…

…

…

If someone had asked Hermione Jane Granger what her heart's desire was, she would have had a hard time answering them. She did, however, know what it most certainly was _not_—she had no desire whatsoever to be on Garvage, the Grunge planet of the Galaxy.

Unfortunately, that was precisely where she was.

Scowling to herself, Hermione marched across the smoky Garvage pub towards the bar, her eyes fixed on the suspect bottles of liquids with disfavor. Normally, she thought all forms of intoxication were beneath her (except for Butterbeer, which was all right in moderation), but considering the nightmare the past couple of days had been, she decided that she needed something strong and hopefully numbing.

Usually, when she felt this way, chewing gum had come to distract her quite well, but ever since Bertie Botts had stopped producing the Booty-Fruity Flavor ("keep post-sex breath fresh"), she'd gone off gum.

In her line of work, she had discovered, she always functioned best when her sliver of a moral conscience was dulled and couldn't bother her.

"Yeah?" asked the barman, eyeing her speculatively.

Hermione had gotten stares like that before. She wasn't strictly beautiful, but she had noticed that sometimes, people were wont to take an interest in her. When it bothered her (as it did now), she just used her spiked bracelets. In lieu of something more powerful—like, say, a _wand_, for example—they did quite well. She flipped a tiny switch on the corner of one of these bracelets on either wrist, and a shining bolt of electricity crackled between the pair.

It usually worked at putting people off. People, Hermione had realized, were often afraid of young women who could pack a punch.

Like this barman. He took a step back, narrowed his eyes, and said more brusquely: "D'you want something?"

"Yes, actually," said Hermione, almost scrupulously polite, high stress notwithstanding "Do you think you could get me a Positive Banana Hammer? Large. It's been a long day."

The barman turned away. "Right," he said gruffly, his back to her.

Hermione idly waited for her drink, tossing a Knut onto the top of the counter. She looked around the smoky little room, at the wide screen on the wall playing back a 3-D hologram film from the 2050s or something, featuring now-dead superstar Mynah Hyena. There was a red-haired boy sitting on the couch in the corner of the room and playing Nintendo 2074, while someone else appeared to have come for a drink dressed up like Count Dracula (a figment of morbid imaginations from Galactic War-zone Earth).

The pub door opened, and a gust of red sand came in with the cold air. Only on Garvage, thought Hermione bitterly, could you have such brutally dry weather across the sandy red dunes and an icily cold wind. She probably shouldn't have expected anything less, though, considering Garvage was a good million or so light-years from the Sun.

_Oooh_… she thought. A young man had walked in, and she straightened up slightly, watching him as he slammed the door behind him. He was tallish and thin, with a scar shaped like a lightning-bolt on his forehead. His mouth was set hard in a face that was both weather-beaten and weirdly fanciable. His short hair was untidy, and his hands were shoved deep in the pockets of his faded jeans. The telltale outline of a sophisticated Deflector Handgun was just faintly visible, tucked into his belt under the frayed shirt he wore. Hermione suspected he could have hidden the weapon if he wanted to, but he obviously didn't want anyone playing games with him.

Even across the pub, she could see that his thickly lashed eyes, behind wire-rimmed spectacles, were a vivid green. His sharp, slightly humorous stare swept the room quickly before coming to rest on her. Without another word, the young man began to move, and he came to stand beside her at the bar.

"Hermione Granger?" he asked.

Hermione rolled her eyes inwardly. "You already knew that," she said with a mixture of scorn and patient tolerance, rather like one might behave towards a cute yet dull child. "We communicated over the TeleCom, remember?"

He smiled. "I thought that enhanced the whole mystery bit."

"Very adventurous of you," said Hermione in a cool voice.

At that moment, the barman dropped her Positive Banana Hammer down on the counter, and gave the young man a rudely expectant look.

Hermione asked: "Are you going to have a drink?" He was probably addicted to Firewhiskeys or something equally awful, she thought critically and then felt slightly ashamed of herself. He had been polite enough to her, and there was no reason for her to judge him unfairly.

He nodded and turned towards the barman. "A Glum Orange Harlot," he said calmly. "And leave out the cherry."

"Harlots don't come with cherries," said the barman nastily, "Only the Excitable Virgins do."

"Then there's no problem here, is there?" said the man, a gleam of amusement in his eyes. He looked across at Hermione, and said, with the air of somebody who wants to be anywhere but exactly where he is: "Er… yeah… so do you want to get this over with or not?"

"Excuse me, but _you_ asked me to come here, remember?" said Hermione waspishly, immediately taking offence to his façade of cool confidence, "I didn't _want_ to come to Garvage! Look, who _are_ you anyway?"

His eyes briefly lit with a grin. "Harry Potter, businessman."

"Oh!" Hermione choked on her drink. "You're certainly _that_!"

He grinned.

"More specifically a kidnapper!"

A sudden hush fell over the room. It was common knowledge in Garvage that to eavesdrop on somebody else's conversation was morally, ethically and legally acceptable. It was, after all, the best way to pick up news or gossip that could end in a large pot of gold later on. Take the example of Explorer Willy Widdershins, who talked to his best friend in a Garvage pub about the Crystal Cave he had discovered, only to wind up dead the next day while bits of shattered Crystal were being sold all over the Galaxy.

It was therefore unsurprising that the moment the unsavory occupants of the pub heard the word 'kidnapper', they stopped what they were doing and listened keenly to gather all the information.

Neither Harry Potter nor Hermione Granger seemed aware of the attention they now received. Hermione appeared flushed with righteous indignation and rage (and who could blame her?), while Harry was… well, to an onlooker, it was very hard to tell _what_ Harry was. In fact, had people not suspected better, it would have looked like a typical Lover's Spat.

"I want my son back," said Hermione coldly, and she looked like a very young mother indeed. "And I demand that you hand him over to me."

"Yes, indeed," said Harry, "Because I make my money by politely obliging all the anxious parents who ask the exact same thing of me. Honestly, Granger, use your brains! You give me the gold and silver, and I'll give you your little Sweet Pea."

Hermione made a spluttering sound. "You have no right—I could turn you in to the Aurors—"

"Yes, yes, and spend the rest of your life scouring space for your son, who would probably be so old by the time you find him that if you recognized him, you could make a fortune off writing books about Mother's Instincts."

"Or I could shove a nasty little Braindigger into your foul head and let it suck every last bit of information out for me—and _then_ I could turn you in!"

Harry shuddered slightly. He had never enjoyed Legilimency, and Braindiggers were a particularly new and noxious form of accomplishing this art. "Right little spitfire, aren't you?" he said to Hermione, looking disconcerted. "Look, there's no need to make this so insanely complicated. All you have to do is give me the two thousand Galleons I asked for, and I'll have your son back in your arms before you can say 'wretched blackguard'."

"Does that mean he's close by?"

"In space, Hermione, anything's close by if you've got the right ship!"

For a long moment, Hermione studied Harry, clearly unaware of the dozen or so pairs of eyes watching her with bated breath. Her obliviousness to their scrutiny was further enhanced by the way she flicked the switch on her bracelet on and off, allowing the electricity to crackle ominously. The Deflector Handgun sat idly in Harry's hand. The two stared at each other, each with their own equally intimidating weapon at the ready, each looking equally accustomed to using them.

People in the room later described the scene as distinctly apocalyptic. "Battle of the Titans sort of thing," they claimed to the Galactic Aurors, even though most of them had no idea who the Titans were.

Finally, Hermione said in a voice that vibrated with venom: "We'll go outside, slowly, Mr. Potter. Then you'll bring my son to me. If you do it without trying anything funny, I'll give you a hundred Galleons. Otherwise, we have no agreement. And, I assure you, you don't want to cross me."

"No, I don't think I do," Harry remarked, watching her closely but with an unmistakable hint of amusement. "But do _you_ honestly think my Deflector won't keep your little toys at bay?"

Hermione snapped her wrists upwards and together. A flash of electricity, charged from the friction between the bracelets, shot out and Harry leapt back, narrowly avoiding its dangerous jump. His brow contracted, and he no longer looked amused. In fact, in that moment, Harry Potter looked decidedly dangerous. The pub was cloaked in a sweaty sheen of tension.

Harry pointed his Deflector Handgun at Hermione. "I'd like the money, Granger, or you'll make me do something I really don't like doing."

"Now, really!" said a bearded gentleman sitting nearby. He got to his feet and looked very angry. Both Harry and Hermione stared at him. "This is really no way to treat a lady, my good sir! I demand you apologize and settle this matter civilly. You can't butcher a young woman in a pub!"

"Fine," grinned Harry, so unaffected he looked almost bored, "We'll take it outside."

"Apologize, sir!" roared the gentleman.

Hermione turned on him, looking upset. "Please don't get involved. I don't want anyone else to get hurt!"

"But, my dear young lady—"

Perceiving that she would have to do something drastic to make sure this poor, well-meaning man didn't get hurt in the crossfire, Hermione feigned a furious approach. "Do you think I can't take care of myself?" she said with false rage. "That I can't cope with this on my own? Stop interfering, would you?"

"The nerve – " the outraged gentleman took a step forward.

Harry turned the gun on him, and fired. A jet of red light hit the gentleman in the shoulder and, with a grunt, he keeled right over. He was Stunned. Hermione turned, aghast (but secretly relieved and admiring that Harry had refused to kill him), and she leapt at Harry, throwing a fierce punch in the vague direction of his jaw. The Positive Banana Hammer fell to the floor, spiraling slowly, and made contact with a shattering crash. The entire pub seemed to take this as their cue.

As is expected of such affairs, absolute pandemonium naturally ensued.

Human/alien nature is fairly simple (have said eminent psychologists). It is apparently physiologically impossible for somebody to watch a violently physical interchange taking place and not get involved in some way or shape or form. For once, psychologists may have been right.

There was soon an all-out brawl in the middle of the bar, from whence the odd fist or leg could be discerned. There were shouts of "blast" or "ouch" or "let me out of here" or (the general favorite) "What's that hard thing poking into my ribs?" The irate barman leaned against the counter with a Toilet Trainer whiskey and looked mildly interested by the proceedings. Speed Stunners flashed across the room at intervals, and the odd person fell limply to the ground. Mynah Hyena continued expostulating on the wide screen. And, completely unseen by anybody, two people strolled out of the bar as if absolutely nothing had happened.

They disappeared fairly quickly into a dusty alley, some distance away, in the direction of the outskirts of the sand-strewn Garvagin city.

Harry Potter and Hermione Granger turned to look at each other. Hermione slowly flipped off the switch on her bracelets, and Harry slid the Deflector Handgun back into his jeans pocket. Then he began to laugh, and after a moment of trying to stare at him in dignified, disapproving silence, Hermione allowed herself a reluctant grin.

"Sweet Pea?" she demanded incredulously. "You named my imaginary son _Sweet Pea_?"

"Well," said Harry, chuckling, "That was certainly dramatic."

Hermione recovered from her brief stint with mirth, and scowled at him. "You owe me more than you can probably count for that, Harry Potter. The whole getting-caught-in-a-brawl thing was _not_ part of the original arrangement."

"I pulled you out of it, didn't I? What's the problem?"

"Oh, did you, indeed? You'd still be in there if my Electro-Bracelets hadn't shocked that beastly giant into letting you go at the critical moment."

"Oh, really – "

"Tell me again, Harry," said a third, slightly mechanical voice from the top of the alley, "Where in the bloody Galaxy did you come across her?"

"I found her in the Immoral, Unethical and Illegal Classifieds," said Harry, turning his head to look at the new arrival. "How the bloody hell did you manage to get out of there without a scratch on you, Ron?"

Hermione watched the young man, about hers and Harry's age, walking down the alley towards them. He looked like your ordinary redheaded, freckled, harmless boy. Then, as he approached them, he appeared to shimmer like a ripple in water. Hermione blinked. The next thing she knew, she was looking at a humanoid droid with flashing blue eyes and a rather unsettlingly permanent frown on his metallic mouth. His voice, too, seemed to have been programmed into a tone that always bordered slightly on rude.

"Hello," he mumbled, "It's nice to meet you. I've never seen anyone keep Harry on his toes like that before. Bloody brilliant, I'd say. I really like the Electro-Bracelets, too. They're very rare on Hogwarts, where we come from."

"Morphodroid," said Hermione with a deep fascination for all things unusual and intellectually programmed. She looked at Harry wryly, shaking her head, "I should have known that harmless young man with his GameBoy was too good to be true."

"This is Ron Weasley," said Harry, "Originally known as Alpha Four-Eighty. And Ron—Hermione Granger, our hired help."

Hermione glared at him. "I hope, after all that, that _Ron_ was productive."

"Well," said Ron earnestly, "You were both very effective at diverting everybody, including the distinguished old man who happened to be carrying the secret blueprints of Planet Aberforth's forthcoming castle… on this very disk. He didn't even notice when I lightly took it out of his pocket. It was very suave work, if I do say so myself."

"Do all morphodroids tend to be this conceited?" asked Hermione, smiling in spite of herself.

Harry laughed. "Ron's one of a kind."

"I'm special," said the droid.

"So special that most things go right over his head," said Harry in an undertone, "Sarcasm, for example."

Ron demonstrated the truth of this by looking up, apparently expecting something literal to be going over his head. Hermione watched him with amused compassion—after all, it had to be quite the job working for a man as awful as Harry Potter.

Ron then pressed a button on his GameBoy (an archaic tool) and ejected a small, square, plastic hologram disk. Harry took it, and grinned. "It's about time I got my hands on this," he remarked. "The only thing that ever took me so long was this one search I went on for a Dark Lord's Horcruxes. Weird, that was. Lockets and snakes and temperamental old megalomaniacs. Anyway, this disk ought to be worth at least ten thousand Galleons from the Professor of Dumbledore. He's been dying to build a better palace than any on Aberforth for years."

"Some people call that plagiarism or copyright violation," said Hermione with a studied mixture of disapproval and nonchalance.

Harry raised his eyebrows. "Are any of those people here?"

"Not if they get their money. I don't live on weeds, you know. I have to survive somehow, so don't even think about getting out of paying me, you—you pirate."

Grinning, Harry said: "Ron?"

Ron snapped open a compartment in his chest. From within, he extracted and counted out ten crisp paper notes. "A Gringotts voucher for a thousand Galleons," he said happily, "Acceptable at any Gringotts Bank."

"And you'll get the rest of the four thousand Galleons after we're paid by the Professor of Dumbledore, as agreed during our last conversation over TeleCom," said Harry to Hermione. "We'll send it to you via confidential Express Floo."

Hermione looked amused. Harry had a sudden flicker of foreboding; in Hermione Granger, he discovered, he had finally met somebody far cleverer than he was. "You must honestly think I'm stupid, Harry," said Hermione tartly, "Young I may be, but I've been around long enough to know most of the tricks in this wretched game. I'm coming with you to Dumbledore and I'll take my money when we get it there. I don't trust you to mail me three thousand Galleons by Express Floo, which, by the way, is corrupt and inefficient."

"I hired you for three hours, Hermione. Your work here is done."

"Unfortunately, dear Harry, that also means I am no longer hired by you. I'm a freelance con-artist, remember? If I want to go to Dumbledore, I can bleeding well go there. Are we understood?"

"I don't like her," said Ron with decision.

"Damned hell," said Harry, looking back at the droid, "I've really opened a can of worms with this one, haven't I?"

There could have been no doubt that Hermione had some form of response on the tip of her tongue, as being lost for words was unlikely in her. Sadly, however, this undoubtedly edifying piece of insult was not destined for her companions' ears. At that precise moment, they all heard the blaring and echoing sound of Garvagin Transmission:

"_ATTENTION GALACTIC AURORS AND GARVAGIN CITIZENS_!" It bellowed vociferously, sounding quite agitated. "_Wanted: two thieves, male and female, by alleged names of Harry Potter and Hermione Granger! Possibly accompanied by a third, male with a fetish for Nintendo 2074! Suspects are dangerous and highly unstable! Chances are, you might find them attacking each other. Disk in their possession must be recovered at once! DID YOU HEAR ME_?"

A ringing silence followed the final question, which Hermione personally thought was a ridiculous one, because only someone absolutely deaf and outside a radius of twenty miles could have missed a word of that. She frowned.

Then she turned to look at Harry. "Weren't you just saying something about a can of worms?"

"Bloody hell," said Harry succinctly.

Hermione raised one eyebrow. "Oh, quite."

"I didn't expect them to discover the loss of the disk so quickly. I s'pose we're going to have to get out of here as quickly as we can, Ron. You and I better get on our way to Dumbledore right away."

"Excuse me," said Hermione indignantly, "But I'm coming with you."

Harry eyed her. "What for? You'd only be a nuisance."

"Because _you're_ the reason I'm now a wanted woman on Garvage! You owe it to me to get me safely away from this wretched planet!"

Moral obligations did not seem to be a familiar consideration for Harry Potter. However, his schoolteachers had once told him he had a great deal of 'moral fibre' (he just, apparently, chose not to use it). So, after a moment's reflection in the shadowy alley of nighttime Garvage, Harry finally said: "All right, I suppose you could come along if you just stay out of our way. However, there's the question of how we're going to get out of here."

"Well, you're a pirate," Hermione pointed out, rolling her eyes, "Don't you have a _ship_?"

"Actually, he does," said Ron, in what he no doubt felt was a helpful tone of voice, "It's one of the fastest and most indestructible in the Galaxy! The _Dirty Deed_. It's at the spaceport about half a mile away."

Harry sighed. "Ron, make a mental note to remind me to disable your free-speech functions one of these days, yeah? Yes, all right," he said, addressing this now to Hermione, "I have a ship. We can get there in half an hour on foot in this cold and dust, or we could steal a taxi and get there in just a few minutes."

"Taxi," said Hermione, for once ignoring the law. "We're already fugitives. A little taxi couldn't hurt anybody!"

As it turned out, it had hurting potential. The only hovertaxi within the vicinity was a 30-foot long truck with huge headlights and a loud engine.

Resigning themselves to the inevitable, Hermione stole upon the driver, who was sleeping a drunken man's sleep in the driver's seat. Using a Speed Stunner extracted from Ron's inner compartment (the droid seemed to hold the Galactic armory!), she put him into a slightly deeper slumber. Harry and Ron then dragged him out of the vehicle and propped him against a nearby Garbage Can with a note ("Your taxi's at the spaceport. Sorry about the trouble. Don't drink so much next time, it's terrible for the liver. Friendly regards, Fugitives Fleeing the Planet").

The con-artist, the pirate, and the droid piled into the long front seat of the hovertaxi, with Hermione in the driver's seat, much to Harry's alarm. Before either he or Ron could say a word, Hermione popped the Firekey into its slot and flipped a few switches. With a grating sound, the engine started up, and, grinding noisily, the taxi rose into the air.

Hermione held onto the steering joystick as the taxi gutturally rumbled and groaned, but shot off through the air. Behind them, they saw lights flickering on in windows and heard the ominous crackling of a Transmission due to be broadcasted. Harry buried his face in his hands and groaned as Hermione swerved sharply to avoid a collision with a rusty Steeltree House. Bird droppings fell onto the front glass as they brushed past the leaves and zoomed noisily into the open air of the sandy dunes ahead. Hermione was forced to admit that she was thoroughly enjoying herself. She liked swooping up and down because it created that pleasant swoopy sensation in her stomach.

"I knew it, I knew it," groaned Harry in a voice of abject despair. "Ever since I let Cho Chang fly my Nimbus Two Thousand—my old ship—I've known it! I _knew_ all women were bad drivers!"

Hermione laughed to herself as she zoomed right through a dune of sand. Fortunately, the windows were closed.

"_I_ should have driven," commented Ron, "I'm good at everything. Especially chess."

"You can keep your swollen head to yourself," said Hermione.

Ron heaved an enormous sigh. "Bloody woman!"

Harry said absolutely nothing; he was possibly immersed in trying to get back into Merlin's good graces.

"Master Harry," said Ron after a moment, with the air of one commenting on extremely pleasant weather, "I calculate that the probability of our surviving this entire escapade and getting to the spaceport intact is approximately point-three at this moment."

A devil she didn't know she possessed compelled Hermione into mischief. Served them right for what they'd put her through at the pub. She looked mischievously at the two male objects beside her.

"Let's see if we can bring that down a little lower, shall we?"

They arrived at the Garvagin spaceport three or four minutes later. Although it was well past midnight, and the four Garvagin moons were high in the sky, the spaceport was still a happy entanglement of activity. Harry and Ron stumbled shakily out of the slightly dented taxi, followed by Hermione, who moved with a decided spring in her step and a satisfied expression on her face.

"The next time we need a freelance con-artist," muttered Harry to Ron, "We'll call Unsavory Services."

Hermione looked around at the hustle and bustle. "Where's your ship, Harry?"

"None of your business," said Harry, and he marched off in one direction.

Smiling, Hermione followed him. Ron tailed them, obviously trying to look very fierce, like a vigilant bodyguard. They wove their way through the roads and hangars of the port. Harry eventually came to a halt in front of a man in official Garvagin garb. The man looked like he was either about to fall sleep or about to kill somebody.

"I have a parking receipt for the _Dirty Deed_. ID 76359." Harry handed a microchip over to the parking attendant.

The man shoved the chip into a machine beside him, looking disgruntled, and said irritably: "That's the Firebolt ship, ain't it? It's in Hangar Four, parking block Sixty Nine. Don't scratch any of the other ships on your way through."

They entered Hangar Four just in time to hear another Transmission:

"_ATTENTION GALACTIC AURORS! Thieving suspects have been sighted at Spaceport Oh-Nine! Must be prevented from leaving the Planet at all costs! Garvagin law doesn't reach beyond the astro-border! HURRY, DAMN IT!_"

"Damn it," echoed Harry, quickening his step. "We'd better get to parking block Sixty Nine and get the hell out of here before they arrive at this Hangar!"

"You don't say," Hermione remarked.

Harry threw her a very aggravated look, and they ran through the rows of spaceships to one at the far end. Hermione stopped and looked at the _Dirty Deed_. Firebolts were always good-looking and fast. This one might be weather-beaten and travel-worn, but it nonetheless looked like it could take on the entire Galactic Fleet! It was also a mixture of dark blues, blacks and greens, her favorite colors. Hermione did not say this, of course, because it went against her principle to compliment anything related to somebody she absolutely despised (and she certainly despised Harry Potter).

Instead, she sniffed loudly and said: "Obviously, something is lacking a little tender loving care."

Harry was evidently pushed to his limits by the insult to his prized possession. He looked her up and down. "Yeah," he agreed, "You. Not that that surprises me, though. I suppose only a porcupine with decent defense mechanisms would dare offer you any love and care."

Ron applauded this statement with vigor, but Harry wondered what had come over him. Normally, insults were Ron's forte. But she had _really_ rattled him since they'd met, what with her poking at his conscience the way she did and reminding him of the niceness he had once had nestled within him… I mean, he'd invited her along, hadn't he, when he could have just left her here?

And that _really_ annoyed him. He didn't _want_ to be the nice guy.

Furious, Hermione smoldered as she watched Harry extract a glowing orange tube from his shirt pocket. This he quickly inserted into the ship's outer pipe, and with a click, a ramp opened up. Harry marched upward without a backward glance at her, and was immediately followed by Ron. Hermione was so enraged with the pirate that she had a good mind to tell him to shove his—

Well, anyway. She was in half a mind to just stalk away and let them fly all over the Galaxy on some fruitless quest for money. She was just about to carry this plan out when the Hangar doors burst open.

"There they are!" shouted a voice.

…

…

**T**O **B**E **C**ONTINUED.

* * *

**Spoiler for Deathly Hallows here, so ignore this bit if you haven't read the book yet:**

Please, please bear with me over "Old Sins". I _will_ write and post the last two chapters of the story (and soon). It's just going to take me a little longer, thanks to the end and epilogue and various intermittent bits of "Deathly Hallows", which depressed the hell out of me in all its disgusting cliches and predictability! I thought I needed to write something fun before the bitterness overpowered me. :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: **Standard disclaimers apply.

**Summary: **AU/AU. Harry Potter is looking for The Heart's Desire. But it's a little difficult to do that when Ron's a droid with a superiority complex, Luna's accidentally given herself an extra limb, the Galactic Aurors are trying to hunt him down, and—worst of all—there's Hermione, a nuisance and distraction that Harry really can't afford to put up with…

**A/N: **Reviews would be most helpful at this crucial juncture!

…

…

…

_**His Heart's Desire**_

**Chapter Two**

…

…

…

…

"There they are!" shouted a voice.

Hermione swiveled around in horror, and saw about ten of the Galactic Aurors, in their distinctive purple robes and with Speed Stunners at the ready, pouring into the Hangar. Stunners were long-range, but they would still have to come a bit further into the room to be able to hit her. Hermione reasoned that there was a possibility she could make a run for it.

She hurtled forward, but found, to her amazement, that she wasn't covering any distance at all. Her arms and legs were flailing in a ridiculous parody of running movements, but she simply wasn't going anywhere.

"What in the world—?"

"Are you MAD, Hermione?" a voice shouted in her ear. "Get on the damn ship before you wind up on a Garvage execution block!"

Hermione realized, to her outrage, that she was being restrained by Harry Potter's arm around her waist. The red beam of a Stunner shot past them, narrowly missing Harry's ear, and Hermione tried valiantly to pull away from him. "Let me go!" she shrieked, "I refuse to go anywhere with you!"

"Tough," Harry said, literally lifting her off her feet and dragging her up the ramp as Stunners flew all around them, bouncing harmlessly off the _Dirty Deed_'s air-shield. Hermione yelled in outrage as Harry punched a button on the inside of the ship and the ramp began to close. At the same time, he shouted loudly: "We can take off now, Ron! The quicker we breach their astro-border, the safer we'll be! It'll take a while before the Guard can mobilize their ships and come after us. _Will you stop struggling_?" He growled at her, releasing her as the ramp shut with a snap. The ship roared smoothly to life.

"Why," demanded Hermione, making a desperate attempt for icy dignity, "Did you bring me onto this ship when I was all ready to run off?"

"I have no idea," said Harry, sounding annoyed with himself, "My one chance to get rid of you, and I bring you with me! Bloody hell, I must either be drunk or more insane than you are. Now will you get yourself up to the control room so that we can strap ourselves in before—?"

The entire ship shook as the Aurors hit them with something a little stronger. Simultaneously, Ron must have hit the right buttons, because Harry and Hermione were both thrown off their feet as the Firebolt rose into the air and zoomed right out of the hangar. Hermione saw the spaceport grow smaller below them (the _Dirty Deed_ had a special glass floor in its entrance room).

The next second, she was blinded as the movement of the ship threw her on top of Harry, who was lying flat on the floor.

For a moment, neither could speak. Hermione stared into his green eyes, unspeakably shaken by the feel of him against her and by the intensity of his eyes, which were actually very engaging and not at all arrogant. He was breathing hard, his eyes locked on hers in turn, his hands instinctively clutching her arms as if to hold her steady.

_Goodness_, she thought weakly, _what the devil is going on_?

Swallowing, she strove for her old arch manner.

"Isn't this just wonderful!" said Hermione tartly, though her voice quivered a little. "The one man who lets me get on top, and I don't even like him!"

"I think I can safely second that," said Harry a little hoarsely.

He bodily lifted her off of him and set her on her feet again as the ship steadied itself. Hermione was horrified to discover that she felt cold without him pressed beside her.

Harry looked at her for a moment, as though he wanted to say something. But he seemed to change his mind; he turned and walked towards the door leading towards the control room, and Hermione, with no other option, went after him. She grabbed at the wall as the ship went through another ominous shudder, the sign of passing through an astro-border, and then hurried after Harry.

The control room looked like any other ship's, only there were about a hundred more buttons and panels and screens everywhere. On one screen, positioned in front of a comfortable-looking pair of sofas, were a pair of butterflies who appeared to be mating, though Hermione doubted the scientific logic of this.

"Turn that off, Luna, we have company," said Harry without looking in the direction of the sofas.

Hermione took a quick look at the vast expanse of space and stars all around them (a hundred and sixty degrees of vision afforded at the front), before she turned around and looked at the back of the sofas. The mating butterflies vanished off the screen, and a head popped up over the top of one of the sofas. Then somebody stood up, and came towards them, blinking.

"Hello," she said, "Who are you?"

Hermione eyed her suspiciously. She appeared to be a human like Harry and herself, but she also appeared to have three legs, all of which were clothed in the same skirt. These legs also moved in precise pace, albeit a little unsteadily because Luna's pale face, large protuberant eyes, and wispy blond hair registered only drowsiness and vague interest.

"Erm—" Hermione began. "Hermione Granger."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," said the girl vaguely, "I'm Luna Lovegood."

"And your legs—"

"Radiation accident," Harry supplied, because Luna was now humming to herself. "One of Luna's scientific experiments went awry and she accidentally gave herself an extra limb."

"I always win the three-legged race," said Luna helpfully, smiling vaguely.

Hermione laughed.

"I like her," Luna told Harry, and promptly went back to her sofa.

Harry cocked his head and said wryly: "Well, at least you have _one_ friend on this whole ship."

Giving the back of Luna's head a rather wary but also tolerant look (far be it for her to judge anybody else), Hermione opted to follow Harry to the controls of the ship, where he sat down in one of the co-pilot seats, and began to punch in a number of values into the small screen on the panel in front of him. Ron, she noticed, had changed back into his redheaded humanoid form, his blue eyes and freckled face rather blank.

"What are Dumbledore's hyperspace exit coordinates, Ron?" he asked.

Ron made a buzzing sound. Hermione saw that he had plugged in one of his fingers into a socket in the ship's computer. The coordinates appeared on-screen, along with a line: 'Six hundred light years from Battle Station Moby Dick'.

"Lovely line," said Ron happily, "I'm so creative."

"I told you to use that one earlier," said Harry irately.

"Pity there'll be no point using it."

No one, of course, paid any heed to this.

Hermione stared at the panel for a long moment, before a problem occurred to her: "But what if there's way too much traffic in the area you exit hyperspace into? You could zoom out straight into an asteroid and kill us all!"

"Never commandeered a ship, have you?" Harry said with an only half-mocking smile.

"No."

"Well, look at what I'm doing—" Harry tapped a button, and the coordinates and additional line on the screen vanished. The next moment, a tiny glowing sphere jettisoned out of the front of the ship and disappeared into hyperspace.

"Harry, but why—?"

"Shut up, Ron," said Harry. "Did you see that?" He asked Hermione.

As Hermione raised her eyebrows, Harry said with a grin: "That's a sphere that requests Star-patrol, the system that monitors space traffic, to tell me whether it's safe to exit hyperspace at those coordinates. Star-patrol then sends disturbances in the astro-field back to the coordinates of my ship, and the ship's computer translates the meaning of the disturbances and lets me know if it's a go-ahead or a don't-do-it-there's-a-big-ugly-space-monster-in-that-area. We just have to wait about thirty seconds for their response."

"But," said Hermione, coming upon a suitable objection, "The ship's ID number is registered in the Star-patrol records, and anyone looking for your ship will know exactly where we are! And since the response comes back in the form of disturbances in the astro-field, then any other ships in the immediate vicinity—_such as the Aurors no doubt chasing us_—will know exactly where we are and where we're going!"

"No," grinned Harry, "They may know where we are now, but they won't know where we're going. Star-patrol appreciates safety for vessels, and sends a response in a coded form. No one nearby will understand what it means."

"What are you—?"

"Incoming!" said Ron, "I knew that Moby Dick coordinate would be a stroke of genius, Harry!" He appeared to have forgotten that it had been Harry's idea. "I really am brilliant, aren't I? Of course, I still don't perceive the point—"

Harry chose to ignore this, and instead pointed to the screen. Hermione bent over his shoulder to read what had appeared in glowing green letters: "_OK to six hundred light years from specified coordinate_".

"There you go," said Harry triumphantly, grinning. "We can enter hyperspace safely now."

"But, Harry!"

Hermione snorted. "I think this is all very foolish," she said, unable to perceive how they could fail to notice the gaping flaws in their plans. "After all, Harry, do tell me what we're going to do if the Aurors search Star-patrol records for your ship's ID number and find out what the coordinate was? Not to mention the fact that the Aberforthian ambassadors might guess where we're taking their precious disk!"

"Look, Hermione, I don't see you giving me any better ideas, so why don't we just take the risk and hope that the Dumbledore diplomatic status will protect us from law-enforcers once we get there?"

"I just think your life is very poorly thought out," sniffed Hermione.

Harry appeared to be fighting back some strong emotion. "Go sit with Luna," he said coolly, "I didn't bring you here to ask questions and be a nuisance."

"Harry, Harry," tsked Hermione with a smile, "Don't make me remind you that you _forcibly_ dragged me onto this ship of yours. It was entirely your choice, not mine. But you wouldn't like to be reminded of that, would you?"

The grinding of Harry Potter's teeth sounded like a rusty overworked machine.

They were distracted by a sudden dull crash against the side of the ship. Hermione grabbed Harry's arm to keep from being thrown to the floor again, and, as the ship righted itself, quickly snatched her hands away.

"Sorry, Harry," said Ron desperately, "I turned off the deflector shield when we put all power into acceleration through the astro-border. A small meteor might have hit us."

"Not so perfect now, are you?"

Ron gave Hermione a very blank stare, but she could almost feel the withering look behind his immovable human-looking features. She smiled to herself.

"It's all right," said Harry in a voice of one striving to remain calm in the face of immense aggravation, "I'll turn it back on." He flipped a switch and there was a rumbling noise as the deflector shield resumed full power. "Do you know _anything_ at all about ships, Hermione? Because we could use someone dispensable to stick their head out into space and check to make sure the meteor didn't do any damage to the ship's exterior…"

Hermione had to put her hands behind her back to keep herself from hitting him. "No," she said coldly, "I only know as much about ships as I've read about them in books. But if you like, I don't mind going out there with the Speed Stunner I still have on me and putting a pretty little hole in your precious Firebolt!"

There was a gleam of appreciation in Harry's eyes that he apparently quelled, because the frown between his brows seemed to overpower his amusement. "Ron," he said, a muscle in his jaw flickering alarmingly, "Switch to the hyperspacial drive."

"Harry, I've been trying to tell you," said Ron in an all too cheerful voice, "Before we went to Garvage on that confidential tip-off about the Aberforthian ambassador's presence at the bar, you said you wanted to stop at the Pirate's Recovery Station. You know, to get the hyperspacial drive fixed because it's been giving us some problems?"

"Oh…"

"I really don't think we should use it now," said Ron, looking a little green, "We could wind up in the middle of the Plutian winter!"

Harry let out a frustrated growl. He scowled his famous scowl upon observing Hermione standing behind him, her arms folded and a look of polite expectancy on her face. Turning away from her, he pointed something out on one of the larger screens.

"Look!" he said angrily. "It's a ship closing in bloody fast, Nimbus class. Galactic Aurors. They'll snare us like rabbits."

Hermione climbed into the missile seat between Harry and Ron, even though she had no intention of firing at anybody except one of the two on either side of her. She promptly strapped herself in. Harry threw her a wry look, and then said: "Ron, I don't care about the drive's bloody problems, all right? It might work this time, and we have to take the risk or we'll spend the rest of our lives in a sewer and you'll be melted down for Galactic Armor. So just push the damned lever!"

"If you insist, Harry," said Ron in the voice of one convinced of his own imminent doom. He reached out with his human-looking-but-really-metallic arm, and pushed at a long sleek lever, flipping a few switches with his other hand.

"Strap yourself in, Luna!" Harry shouted.

There came a whistling sound, and the ship was sucked into hyperspace. Hermione, who never enjoyed space travel or flying (especially not this part), shut her eyes as that feeling of being boxed into a very small amount of space washed over her. She felt a strong desire to throw up, but contained herself with difficulty.

Seconds later, however, they passed out of the spacial barrier and into the hyperspace freeway, where travel seemed to happen at normal sub-light speed, but in reality occurred at a speed that was mind-bogglingly fast. Hermione opened her eyes and watched a space cruiser pass by slowly, a host of people staring out of the long glass windows and waving cheerfully at them, brightly colored drinks in their hands.

The ships moved so close to each other that Hermione almost shuddered. She much preferred close calls on land. She _loathed_ flying. This was altogether too much of a pain in the—

Hermione turned around and saw that Luna had been knocked right off the sofa when they had passed through the barrier, and was now lying on the floor, apparently undisturbed by the events in any way.

"So—er—I've been to Hogwarts," she said, feeling that it was time she behaved a little more maturely and extended an olive branch to them. "Do your families live there?"

"Every droid I know," said Ron.

Harry said nothing.

"Harry?" said Hermione carefully.

"I don't have a family," he said, without looking at her. "My parents were murdered when I was just a baby and I was raised by my aunt and uncle. I don't think they were very fond of me." He stared ahead into the darkness of the skies, and there was a distant, haunted expression on his face, one that spoke of loneliness and courage against impossible odds, and a weight that would probably never go away.

Hermione was conscious of a terrible surge of compassion and sympathy for him. She, after all, sort of knew how he felt, even though she couldn't claim to truly understand his grief at the loss of his parents (for she had never known hers in the first place).

"I'm sorry," she said, and she meant it.

"Are you?" he said, looking across at her. He smiled bitterly. "You know, I think you actually are. I don't want your pity, Hermione."

"This is not pity!" she said at once. "It's just… I _do_ understand, a little bit. But—but I just think I need to say that it won't make you happy, being a pirate. Constantly evading the law. Hoping you can get rid of the loneliness by burying yourself in danger and adventure. It—it doesn't work. It just makes it worse as time goes on…"

"Really?" he snapped. "And how the hell would you know?"

"Because—because I've been trying it for years, doing what I do, and it hasn't worked for me."

His expression changed; his eyes narrowed shrewdly at her and he absently fumbled with the lightning-bolt scar on his forehead. Hermione wondered for a wild moment whether he had received it when his parents had been murdered. She felt a lump form in her throat and her heart ached for him. Unfortunately, she'd been alone and prickly for so long that it was difficult to soften towards him outwardly.

She turned her face away from him, unable to bear his intense green eyes, which told her they could see right into her…

Ron, she noticed, was watching them, evidently baffled.

"I wish I was home," Hermione remarked mournfully, feeling unhappy and dejected. It was hard work, staying angry with someone who had saved her life and who could prove, on occasion, to be quite pleasant and obviously deeper than she'd expected. But she couldn't bear to be openly friendly to him or to Ron, both of whom clearly felt her presence was nothing short of torture.

Harry shot her a sideways look. "Where is home?"

"Nowhere," said Hermione shortly. "I don't have one. I don't remember where I was born. My grandmother only told me that an Interspace Falcon dropped me on her doorstep as a baby. I assume it must have given birth to me."

Harry grinned. "That explains everything."

"I spent most of my childhood at the School for the Blind on Grimmauld."

"Why?"

"Because they gave you cookies and milk if you were missing one of your senses, and I had no other source of nutrition. It was, however," Hermione added reflectively, "Rather hard always pretending."

"I have always been an excellent actor," remarked Ron.

"I think I gave it away one afternoon when I shrieked and saved a girl from a Malevolent Butterfully hovering right in front of her. You'd think they would have been pleased that I saved a blind girl's life, but they weren't! They were only concerned with the fact that I'd lied to them all my life. I don't think the story about a bird magically restoring my sight worked either. They threw me out."

"Oh?"

"Yes," said Hermione, sighing, "And so I became a con-artist to feed myself."

Harry looked skeptical. "You couldn't have just asked for unemployment benefits?"

"Not on Grimmauld," snorted Hermione, "They give you to the Hungarian Horntail on Grimmauld if you're not gainfully employed at all times!"

Harry grinned, then sobered. "Look, why don't you take a blanket and get some sleep?" he asked, in a voice that was far gentler than any he had used before. "It'll be another half an hour before we exit hyperspace and I'll wake you before we pass through the barrier. You wouldn't want to miss all the excitement, would you?"

Hermione pulled her knees up and rested her chin on them. "No thank you," she said sadly.

She maintained a reflective silence for about twenty minutes, before realizing that it was very late indeed and that she had been in such a rush to catch the quickest transport from Grimmauld to Garvage that she hadn't had any dinner and the little of the Positive Banana Hammer that she'd drunk wasn't sitting very well in an empty stomach.

"Do you have a soda machine or a snack counter anywhere around this deplorable pile of rubble?" she asked Harry, unstrapping herself and getting to her feet.

"Lovely girl," Ron remarked, "Such a pleasant personality."

Harry's mouth twitched as he said: "What d'you think we are here, Hermione? The Galactic Plaza?"

"Are you telling me you don't even have one of those out-of-date vending machines?"

"Try the kitchen," said Harry, sounding as though he was torn between amusement and exhaustion, "Turn left once you leave the control room. You ought to find something somewhere in there."

Mentally cursing herself for having registered in the Immoral, Unethical and Illegal Classifieds, Hermione turned on her heel and marched out of the control room. She pushed the flat panel to one side and the doors slid open, and she turned left down the long corridor.

She was shocked by how neat and tidy every corner of the ship appeared to be. Really, she thought, didn't the man realize that pirates were supposed to be uncouth and filthy and smoke foul brands of tobacco and harbor rats in their hair? Unless it was _Ron_ who did all the compulsive cleaning? But that was doubtful… (Hermione seriously doubted that Luna Lovegood would notice even if a Basilisk was sharing his sofa and watching butterflies with him).

She entered the depressingly sparkling kitchen, with all its varied gadgets and dangerous-looking utensils scattered in their respective places. A brand new coffee-maker was whirring softly in one corner, and an Automatic Egg-Fryer had apparently turned itself on and was making itself a fried egg, sunny side up.

"Erm," said Hermione, feeling distinctly wrong-footed and also deeply fascinated, "I was wondering whether there's anything here to eat? Apart from eggs and coffee, that is?"

The kitchen machines all turned themselves on.

"Whiskey?" slurred the Mini Bar with a giggle.

"Peanut Butter Ice Cream?" asked the freezer in a cold voice.

"Bubblegum?" said the Gumball machine, on whose side a female face blew a pink bubble at Hermione.

Hermione seized the opportunity: "Yes," she said quickly. "Bertie Botts bubblegum! Er – which year were you made, Gumball machine?"

The other machines turned themselves off with distinctly disappointed airs, and the solely triumphant Gumball machine whirred out its response: "I'm a 2069 model, miss, with one of the widest range of varieties, and in spiffing good condition for my age."

"If you're from 2069," said Hermione eagerly, "You can probably still produce Booty-Fruity!"

The Gumball machine's humanoid face gave her a very stern look. "Who do you plan on booty-fruity-ing with tonight?"

Hermione placed her hands on her hips. "Don't you get nosy with me, you trap of scrap."

"Booty-Fruity Flavor," said the machine loftily, "Has currently been discontinued by Bertie Botts. It would be illegal and immoral of me to produce it just for you when those of younger generations refuse to do it."

"Oh, for heaven's sake, you're on a pirate's ship! I don't precisely approve of dodgy behavior, but in circumstances like these, who cares if it's illegal?"

"You know, Gummy," said one of the other machines, switching itself back on again, "That's a very reasonable point."

With an irritable sigh, the Gumball machine whirred and expelled a tiny roll of sparkling pink bubblegum. Hermione seized it and popped it into her mouth ecstatically, instantly feeling much better. The machines were all (seemingly) eyeing her with interest now.

"You're a clever one for a woman," said the freezer coolly, "Most of the women the captain brings on board are as thick as that Automatic Egg-Fryer over there. I mean, it's frying an egg right now! For whom, I ask you? Itself?"

"Erm, yes, thank you very much," said Hermione, a little disturbed and upset that the first and only compliment she'd received in the day had been from a refrigerator.

"Leave the Egg-Fryer alone, Freezer," the Vegetable-Cutter said nastily, "You're a real frigid little witch, aren't you?"

"Your tongue's been sharpened, Veggie," retorted the freezer.

"Now, really!" Hermione shrieked above the angry voices, "Don't you think this is all a little unnecessary? I mean, we're all in the same boat—I mean, on the same ship, here, aren't we? Don't you think we ought to work together?"

"I don't see _you_ going out of your way to cooperate with Captain Harry and the Metamorphodroid and that other oddity," said a snide little voice from behind her.

Hermione turned. "Who said that?" she demanded.

"I did," said the voice again, apparently coming from nowhere.

The other machines, Hermione could have sworn, exchanged meaningful glances, apparently now united against a common enemy. "It's the ship's central computer," said the Gumball machine, its humanoid face expressing nothing but dislike. "And a real snooty thing he is, too. Keeps threatening to shut our power off if we don't behave nicely."

"Pity I can't shut off the young lady's power, too, but the captain may not like it if I tried to push her buttons—oh, dear! We're about to pass through the hyperspace barrier!"

The voice disappeared.

"Oh, _no_!" wailed Hermione, almost spitting out her chewing gum in dismay. "I need to get back to my seat!"

"Oh, not to worry, dear," said the warm, motherly voice of the oven, "It won't be so bad. You can regurgitate into that sink over there if you like. I've always felt that a nice hot scone with cream and raspberry jam always makes one feel better at a time like this. Shall I warm one up for you?"

Hermione paid no attention to this. She was too busy trying to leave the kitchen. But no sooner had she taken one step towards the door than the ship went through the violent motion of passing through the barrier. Hermione let out a yelp as she was thrown right off her feet (yet again) and hit the wall. She slumped to the floor, out cold.

"My, my," said the Mini Bar thoughtfully, "I don't think she's enjoying this trip very much, do you?"

When they exited hyperspace and were probably cruising about two or three light-weeks away from Battle Station Moby Dick, Harry Potter realized his hired con-artist had been gone a very long time. Mildly curious and also (though he would never admit it out loud) rather concerned, Harry left Ron in charge of guiding the ship towards Dumbledore (six hundred light years away) and went to the kitchen.

He found the machines anxiously debating over what was to be done, and Hermione lying on the floor as still and silent as a marble statue. It was, thought Harry, deeply disconcerting and a little worrying to see Hermione so still and quiet.

With a sigh, he said: "OK, what happened?"

"It wasn't _my_ fault, Captain!" said the Vegetable-Cutter quickly, "Even if the freezer tells you it was!"

Harry frowned. "Shut it. I suppose she got knocked out when we passed through the barrier a minute or two ago, did she?" He crouched down beside Hermione, and looked at her for a moment. Then he picked her up as easily as if she had been a child, and laid her down on the long table in the middle of the kitchen.

"Do you think she needs a pick-me-up?" asked the Mini Bar hopefully.

"No, thanks. Just some water."

The freezer shot a bottle of water out at Harry, who caught it and deftly sprinkled some on Hermione, who coughed and spluttered, choking out the chewed piece of bubblegum. Slowly, she opened her eyes. She let out a shriek at the sight of Harry and then gasped.

"Oh, Harry! Sorry, I—I don't know—oh, good heavens, this is ridiculous!" She groaned. "How could I have ever gotten myself into such a ghastly situation?"

"Thanks very much," said Harry dryly, smiling and stepping back so that she could get off the table. "It really isn't as though I just saved your life or anything. Or revived you from a possible coma. I mean, I could have left you to stew." However, to her surprise, he didn't say anything like "now you owe me two". Instead, he merely accepted the state of affairs as if it could be no other way, and said, "We should be arriving at Dumbledore in a few minutes, so you should come back with me and sit down before you get knocked off your feet again."

Hermione stared for a moment. She could have sworn he almost sounded _concerned_.

"Harry!" Ron's voice bellowed at them over the ship's transmitter. "Harry! We have a problem! HARRY!"

Harry and Hermione looked at each other. Hermione raised her eyebrows a little anxiously, but not without a small hint of smugness. "Dare I ask, Harry? Have you made a mistake with your marvelous hyperspacial calculations?"

She grinned as Harry frowned at her and walked towards the door. She followed him, and heard the oven call out, as they left: "Are you sure you won't have that scone?"

In the control room, Ron was waiting for them. "Harry," he said, almost quivering with satisfaction, "I'm afraid that the malfunctioning hyperspacial drive has caused us a Serious Problem. We appear to be nowhere near either Battle Station Moby Dick or Dumbledore, and we're instead in some recess of space that appears to be, for now, entirely unpopulated by any traffic or asteroid fields. It would seem that you made an error in judgment, and that I, as I always am in every possible situation, was right."

"Oh, shut up, Ron," said Harry, bending over the control panel. "Where the hell are we?" he demanded, possibly of the computer.

"I am currently calculating the coordinates, Captain," came the snide voice of the central computer. "It's taking a long time because the silly Automatic Egg-Fryer is sucking up a great deal of my power supply. Oh, here we are. My calculations, Captain, reveal that we are nearing a small and very sparsely civilized planet."

Hermione became aware of Luna standing at her elbow and surveying something out of the front of the ship with what looked like mild interest. "Dear me," she said dreamily, "That looks like Vale."

"Don't be ridiculous, Luna, there's no way we could be anywhere near Vale—"

Harry suddenly stopped short. He was staring at the approaching planet as well. It was a small planet by any standards, Hermione thought, and appeared to have water sources on it because it was an interestingly varied shade of grey and blue. Hermione scoured her memory for the planet Vale, but came up with nothing. It rang a bell, but she couldn't place it. Something about rocks and water, and a chamber pot, was that it?

"Harry," said Ron, "Harry, is that _really_ Vale?"

Harry spasmodically tapped a few keys into the computer, and replied after a moment in a very hushed sort of voice: "Yeah, Ron… it is."

"Wow," Ron breathed.

Harry sank weakly into a chair.

Hermione looked between him and Ron and Luna, all of whom were staring at the planet as if they had never seen anything so beautiful (well, Ron's expression was rather blank as always, but Hermione was sure he felt it on the inside). Personally, she didn't see what was so pretty about a planet made of nothing but rock and water, because she liked to have a little grass here and there instead of a chamber pot… but Luna, for the first time, actually looked like she was paying attention to what was in front of her.

"Er—all right," she said, after a moment of this rapturous silence had passed. "How did we get to Vale and what exactly is so special about it?" It was difficult for her to phrase this question, because it was not in Hermione's nature to admit ignorance of anything. But, really! Outlandish planets… how was she supposed to know about _all_ of them?

"Which question do you want me to answer first?"

"Stop being a prat, Harry!"

"Hermione, we could have just stumbled upon our wildest dreams!"

Hermione stared at him. "What are you talking about?"

"Vale," said Harry, sighing blissfully, "Is the pirate heaven. Every pirate in the Galaxy wants to find it. The trouble is, you can _only_ find Vale by accident—if you have a malfunctioning hyperspacial drive in your trusty old Firebolt, for instance!"

He managed to tear his eyes away from the nearing planet and grinned at her, and she felt an odd twitch in her chest on seeing that smile. "Do you know how many people in this Galaxy would _kill_ to be where we are right now?"

"All for a chamber pot?" said Hermione, perplexed.

Luna's large eyes were round and dreamy. "The happiest hour of your life," she breathed.

"It's not just any chamber pot, Hermione," Harry told her patiently, and she was surprised that he was making an effort to rein in his annoyance, "Haven't you heard of the Belfry of Vale?"

"Of course I have," said Hermione dismissively, "But what's so wonderful about—?"

"The Belfry of Vale, you idiot, is the home of the Chamber Pot."

As Ron said this with the air of one making the most stunning announcement of the century, it was no wonder than Hermione was left feeling considerably like she had just walked into a room full of lunatics.

"But what," she asked at last, "Do pirates want with a chamber pot? Surely they have enough in the bathrooms on their ships—"

"Haven't you been listening?" demanded Harry, now sounding thoroughly annoyed with her. "The Chamber Pot is the answer to everybody's dreams. It's sometimes more politely referred to as the Heart's Desire, but it's really just a marble chamber pot that's lighter than a feather and has very complex internal plumbing."

"How is complex internal plumbing everybody's heart's desire?"

"Hermione! When one uses the toilet, one usually pulls the flush, does one not? No, no, don't answer that, let me finish. With the Heart's Desire, when you pull the flush, you also flip the switch on a highly advanced simulation of _your own greatest desire_. Your deepest wish, your greatest dream, your desires, hopes, wishes… you can have and live it all in the magical field created around you and the chamber pot. For exactly one hour, you can enjoy a realistic, three-dimensional, touch-and-stroke illusion of your dreams! There are no limits…"

Hermione had a feeling her eyes were growing rounder and rounder. "You're not serious!" she said. "But—but—"

"_Everyone_ would want that," Harry finished for her.

"Exactly!" She was surprised he had been able to read her unspoken words so well.

"Assuming we found it, and decided we didn't mind selling it to the highest bidder, we could make millions of Galleons! We could make so much money that we could buy the Galaxy! The Heart's Desire is priceless, and that's why bounty hunters and pirates and lawyers have spent half their lives searching for it."

For a long moment, there was a positively magical silence in the ship, during which one young man, two young women, and one droid stood at the control panel and watched the much sought-after planet of Vale draw closer.

Finally, Hermione inquired, afraid she already knew the answer: "Erm… how does the program in the Heart's Desire _know_ your deepest dream and dearest wish?"

"It analyses the contents of the chamber pot," said Ron very dispassionately.

"I wish I hadn't asked."

"It's probably not a very happy program," Ron agreed.

"I suppose droids can't use it then," said Hermione, raising one eyebrow. "That's awfully tragic for you, isn't it, Ron?"

"Droids," said Ron irritably, "Don't have hearts."

Harry was accelerating the _Dirty Deed_ at a higher pace towards the planet. As it drew nearer, the rock formations and vast seas and lagoons became clearer and more distinguishable. Hermione had not changed her mind about it looking like a singularly depressing sort of planet to be on (with the exceptions of Garvage and Grimmauld), but she had to admit that it could be worth it.

"How do we find this Belfry of Vale?" she asked Harry, frowning a little. "After all, I'm sure people have wound up on this planet before. If they still haven't managed to find it, then odds are a pirate accompanied by a droid with Ron's intelligence isn't likely to get any closer to it than anyone else did."

"I don't see _you_ with a map etched across your face," he said, sounding suddenly tired, as though he was sick of arguing and wanted nothing more than to just move on, "So can we scrap the jokes and do some brainstorming instead?"

Hermione studied him thoughtfully, surprised to see that when tested, he really was not keen on conflict at all. In fact, he seemed to consider it beneath both of them to waste their time bickering when there were more important things to do and when there were far more important, meaningful things to argue about in the long run.

She took a deep breath, oddly relieved by the prospect of positive conflict endurance, and said, "I'm sorry, Harry. You – you're really desperate to find this, aren't you?"

"Yeah," he muttered, "I've always dreamed of this."

Hermione was silent for a moment, contemplating this, and she finally attempted to reason with the man: "Then don't you think it would be the worst investment of time and energy of your life?" she said. "After all, if your heart's desire is to find the Heart's Desire, then your simulation will probably be a replica of the Heart's Desire, which you don't need at all because the real thing's already there!"

"My heart's desire is _not_ to find the Heart's Desire," said Harry, looking goaded beyond endurance. "Now would you please just go sit somewhere and stop making a nuisance of yourself? We need to navigate a successful landing, because if we do happen to crash into the rock, I somehow doubt I'll be lucky enough to watch you smattered to bits."

"You don't know what your heart's desire is, do you?" said Hermione, eyeing him shrewdly, able, from the expressive nuances of his features and from the verbal violence that he obviously didn't mean, to almost read his mind. "That's really why you want to go there, isn't it? Not just for the money, but to find out…"

"Hermione, for your own sake, don't _test_ me! I'm nowhere near as benign as I may appear at first sight! Now, for the last time, go—sit—down before I shoot you with this Stunner and knock you out for the next two days!"

"Hoo!" said Hermione scornfully, stalking away. "As if you could!"

Luna sighed dreamily as Hermione marched to the sofa and sat down, crossing her arms and looking torn between curiosity and annoyance. "How sweet," she said happily, "An unspoken passion. I do love unresolved tension."

"_Passion_?" Harry nearly shouted. "For that violent, irritatingly superior, oh-Harry-let-me-reawaken-your-better-side… _woman_? Have you lost your mind? Did you ever even have it in the first place?"

"You're about to crash, I think, Harry," was all Luna offered in response, unimpeachably serene.

Harry Potter swore and attempted to save his ship and the lives of his friends.

…

…

…

**TBC**.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: **Standard disclaimers apply.

**Summary: **AU/AU. Harry Potter is looking for The Heart's Desire. But it's a little difficult to do that when Ron's a droid with a superiority complex, Luna's accidentally given herself an extra limb, the Galactic Aurors are trying to hunt him down, and—worst of all—there's Hermione, a nuisance and distraction that Harry really can't afford to put up with…

**A/N: **Thanks to all of you who have reviewed so far! I'm so glad most of you love this—it's a rather odd concept, so I had my doubts about it… anyway, thanks again and I hope you continue to enjoy it!

…

…

…

_**His Heart's Desire**_

**Chapter Three**

…

…

…

…

Harry swore several more times, and flipped several switches on the control panel. The rocks of Vale loomed towards them, and the ship leveled itself parallel to the ground. "Ron, make a safe landing, would you?" said Harry, before turning back to set Luna straight about the certain assumption she had made about "unspoken passions" and "unresolved tensions".

Luna, however, had apparently grown bored with the conversation and had gone to the sofa to ask Hermione whether she had a bottle of ink she could borrow.

Having found a nice spot of flat rock in the shelter of a cave-filled cliff face and a single fruit tree, Ron settled the _Dirty Deed_ down gently, told them all he was an excellent pilot, and followed Harry and Hermione towards the entry hatch, with Luna trailing behind them as if she was simply taking an aimless stroll. Hermione pushed the panel on the inside of the ship, and the ramp hissed and opened out for them. Without looking at Harry, she marched down and onto the rock below. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement up near one of the cliff caves, but when she turned her head, there was nothing.

Convinced that stories of heart's desires and dreams and chamber pots had addled her brain already (and the two male specimens with her were physical proof of the mental degradation possible), she sighed and looked across the nearest lagoon, where light reflected off the water and turned it a deep, sparkling blue.

"Now what?" she demanded. "We walk across an entire planet?"

Ron said: "Harry, we could take out the deerglider."

"What's a deerglider?"

"It's a convertible hovercar, only much sleeker and faster," said Harry, who had already moved behind the ramp to the curved base of the ship. "New vehicle model. We stole it from a factory on Mars."

"My, don't you make an honest living," remarked Hermione.

"Hello, kettle, this is the pot speaking…"

Hermione bit back a laugh, reluctantly (and privately) admitting that he could be quite entertaining and clever on occasion.

Harry punched in a code into the panel on the underside of the ship, and with a hissing sound again, a new compartment opened up at the bottom of the ship. Hermione watched as Harry walked into the compartment, which looked like a small and dark garage, and vanished from sight. The next second, there was a whooshing sound, and a convertible hovercar zipped out of the garage and came to a smooth halt, whirring and hovering about three feet off the ground. Harry was sitting in the driver's seat behind the wheel, grinning like a boy with a new toy.

"Very nice," Hermione admitted, smiling at the delighted expression on his face, which sat very strangely on the lean face of a pirate.

Ron said, "I think I could have done it better."

"Thanks, mate, now get into the back. Hermione, I suppose you're going to want the passenger seat?"

"Can I drive?"

"You're joking, right?" he grinned. "After the stunt with the hovertaxi? The closest you'll get to driving my deerglider is if you're sitting on my lap, and—" he broke off, shuffling for a moment, as though he'd only just heard his own words, and he added quickly, "And believe me, that's unlikely. So get in before I leave you behind. Ron, can you lock the ship?"

Muttering to herself about pirates, Hermione climbed through the passenger-side door that Harry popped open for her (she supposed she ought to be grateful that he had some gentlemanly qualities), and settled herself into the passenger seat. Ron handed the glowing orange ship key to Harry and found a spot for himself behind them.

"We seem to be missing someone," said Hermione doubtfully, "Where's Luna?"

It took them nearly five minutes to locate Luna, which they finally did under the shadow of the fruit tree. She was standing and staring blankly up at the cliff caves, and when they pulled the deerglider beside her and asked her whether she planned on joining them, she merely said:

"There's a man up there, you know."

"Rubbish, Luna," said Harry dismissively, "We won't find people here unless there's a larger settlement."

Luna climbed awkwardly into the back of the glider, her middle leg dragging slightly behind the others. She said, "Well, I thought you might want to know that he's watching us, Harry. I don't think he likes us much."

Harry and Hermione exchanged a glance. Hermione felt slightly uneasy, but didn't say anything. She didn't want to give Harry more excuses to make fun of her.

…

…

…

High in the cave that Hermione and Luna had both looked at was a small but powerful Number Two Thousand and One (the kind that can travel Interspacial distances, not merely _within_ a planet). There was a tall, thin man standing beside the glider and pumping fuel into its light-deflector generator. He wanted light to reflect away from him so that nobody saw him. Light-deflector generators were terribly expensive, but Secret Spies were paid well.

Sticking a cigarette into his mouth, Rabid Mania felt that the journey through hyperspace had sobered him up completely and made him hungry for a smoke.

He detached his fuel cord, and then went to the opening of the cave again. The deerglider was disappearing over the rocky horizon, but it didn't matter: they wouldn't get far on the planet before he found them again.

The Aurors had offered him a hefty bounty if he caught the thieves and recovered the disk that was inexplicably so important to the Emperor of Aberforth. An added bonus because two of the said thieves were Harry Potter, the pirate nuisance of the Galaxy, and Hermione Granger, who had been part of the some of the most ingenious (and hence most aggravating) cons of the past three years. Mania shook his head. It was a real stroke of luck that their deflector shield had been down when he'd collided with them (no wonder drunk driving was illegal). They hadn't bothered to check what the source of the impact had been, and he'd stuck to their ship like Perma-Stick Bubblegum, and now they were here…

He had no idea where 'here' was—its coordinates registered nowhere in his Galactic Cartographer—but he knew his quarry weren't far.

Mania tried his Portkey Radio again, and bleeped out a blank message. Hopefully, his message would radiate outward with some kind of return address and the Aurors would know where to find him. They already owed him a large piece for finding the pirate and con-artist. As far as Mania was concerned, the Aurors could do the catching. He had no desire to tussle with a pirate, a con-artist, a Metamorphodroid who obviously had a superiority complex, and a madwoman with three legs and uncanny eyesight. He'd done his two bits for the century.

Grinning to himself, Mania stubbed out his cigarette against the cave wall and got back into his Nimbus Two Thousand and One, flicking on the light-deflector generator immediately. He was going to have some fun chasing his pricey prey.

…

…

…

It was afternoon (Vale local time) when the deerglider came upon their first settlement. As it had only been two hours, this was not tremendously exciting. Harry glided closer to the little houses and caves carved out of rock.

"How depressing," Hermione murmured as they drew nearer and several people appeared to stare, astounded, at them, "Haven't they heard of thatch?"

Harry smiled. "Somehow, I doubt availability of varied resources is one of Vale's perks. I'm guessing they have more than they could ever want of water and rock. Maybe the odd diamond or two."

"Why're they looking at us like we're lunatics?" inquired Ron. "Are we dirty?"

"Well, _you're_ unspeakably grimy," said Hermione.

Ron glowered at her. "_Definitely_ the Unsavory Services next time."

Harry cut the glider's engine and sat still for a moment, staring at the faces all around them with a mildly disconcerted look. Then, with his usual lopsided grin, he opened the door and jumped out. The others followed, Hermione surveying the residents of Vale and thinking that they looked as though they hadn't seen the rest of the Galaxy in at least ten years.

"Hi," said Harry in his naturally friendly voice, "We're visitors from Hogwarts, and we were wondering whether—?"

"How did you get here?" an old man with a long beard interrupted.

Harry looked surprised by the question. "A ship, of course."

The people looked very excited, especially the young ones. "We've never seen a ship!" said one of them. "The ship some of the others landed in drowned in the water and we've never been able to find it because we can't remember which water body it fell into. So we've never been able to leave Vale either, and I have no idea what Hogwarts is."

"Would you like some lunch?" someone else asked them eagerly.

Luna looked at them all vaguely. "What a handsome group of people," she said. "It's awful. Humans weren't designed for perfection."

"No," agreed Ron at once, and all too predictably, "That's a privilege reserved for Metamorphodroids. Myself in particular, of course. Oh, hello," he said to a young girl staring at him with her mouth open, "I'm a remarkable invention, aren't I? You don't understand a word I'm saying, do you? Teeny human brains." He sighed pityingly.

Harry scowled. "Shove it, Ron. We'd _love_ lunch," he said to the person who had offered it, "Thanks."

'Lunch', as it turned out, did not have the same meaning on Vale that it did in the rest of the Galaxy. This word was apparently used to describe a procedure in which strangers were made to sit on armchairs carved out of rock in a desolate campfire sort of area, and watch a ritual dance that reminded one of people trying to rid themselves of fleas.

"Are you telling me," said Hermione after a suitable amount of dancing had finished and she judged it polite to interrupt, "That there have been no other visitors from the rest of the Galaxy to your settlement in years? At all?"

The old, bearded man said: "Very rarely. The last people who came here got dropped off by Galactic Taxi by accident. They were really trying to find some place called Grimmauld so that they could visit their daughter and give her a dewdrop bracelet before they continued their travels. But they got stuck here with no way to leave the planet. I must say, they seem to like it very much here, though."

"Where are they?" asked Hermione interestedly.

"Over there," said the man, and another man and a woman came out of one of the houses, looking eager and curious. They were both of early middle age and looked like your average, slightly scholarly human beings.

They approached the newcomers.

"Hi," said Harry.

"Hello," said Hermione.

"Lovely to meet you," said the woman, "I'm Jane Granger and this is my husband Lawrence—"

Hermione fainted.

"Well," said Harry in some fascination, "What are the odds of _this_ happening? No, Ron, don't tell me."

"Was it something I said?" asked Jane Granger anxiously.

Harry grinned and held out a hand. "Harry Potter, pirate and swashbuckler. This is Hermione Granger. I think you might be related."

"_Hermione_?" gasped the man. "This is _our_ Hermione?"

Harry nodded sympathetically. "I know. Dreadful, isn't it? Just when you thought you were rid of her for good… I can't tell you how I sympathize." His expression suddenly grew angry, and they both looked alarmed. "Although, I think it was a little underhanded of you to abandon her the way you did. Parents…" his eyes darkened for a moment. "Have no right having children if they're not going to stick with them."

"But—but—" Mrs. Granger stammered, looking like she had just been hit in the stomach by a Positive Banana Hammer.

Obviously, thought Harry, Hermione had not inherited her mother's loquaciousness.

Beside him, Ron and Luna were attempting to revive Hermione, who had apparently suffered a more lasting effect from her blackout on the ship, because it took rather longer than it ought to have. When she awoke, however, she burst into tears, and, to the astonishment of the entire village and to the crew of the _Dirty Deed_, called her parents all kinds of names.

"How _could_ you?" she said in a low, intense voice. "Didn't you _care_?"

"But, Hermione," stammered her flabbergasted father, "We didn't _abandon_ you—you mustn't think that! It was simply that we realized we'd be traveling so much that we thought you'd have a better life with my mother on Grimmauld…"

"_Your mother_," sobbed Hermione, "Ran off when I was six years old!"

"What?" said Mr. Granger, aghast.

"Oh, yes! On my sixth birthday. She didn't shed a tear, but packed her bags and left. Apparently she couldn't deal with the pressures of second motherhood in her dotage." Hermione eyed her father. "I gathered that her first experience wasn't entirely a happy one."

"But—"

"You know," said Hermione, with perfect dignity, wiping her eyes, "I think I may say some more rude things if you keep looking at me like that. I really don't want to speak to either of you, so why don't you just leave us to this louse-infested dance and get back to your busy lives?"

"But—"

"Didn't you hear me—?"

"Hermione," said Harry without raising his voice in the slightest.

Hermione, amazingly, fell silent and scrubbed away the last of her tears with two small fists.

After a moment of long silence, Mrs. Granger ventured tentatively: "We would like to get to know you, you know, Hermione. We scramble and unscramble Interspacial signals as a profession, and we love our work. But we care very much about you. We really do."

"Really," corroborated Lawrence, nodding his head earnestly.

For the life of him, Harry could not begin to fathom from whence Hermione derived her spirit and clever-yet-slightly-fiery temperament. But perhaps life on Vale had mellowed her remarkable parents to the point where they looked petrified of a daughter twenty years younger than they were.

Hermione snorted. "Is that so? You'd like to get to _know_ me? You had eighteen years to do it, didn't you? Nineteen, actually, if you count the eight months I spent lurking in _her_ womb."

"Seven and a half, actually," said Jane tearfully, "You were very premature."

All the instabilities were hence explained, thought Harry.

Hermione looked stunned that her mother actually knew that.

"We couldn't visit you or come and find you again," Jane went on, "We were stuck here. We had no choice."

Hermione's eyes were alarmingly filled with tears again. Harry looked away; he found that seeing her looking so hurt and upset did funny things to his chest. It made his heart… well… _hurt_ a bit. He couldn't understand the sensation. He was accustomed to stomach twitches and chest monsters and all of that rubbish, but his _heart_ normally remained quite stable…

"Let's go," said Hermione after a moment, standing up so quickly that she knocked Ron over and Luna, who had fallen asleep with her head on Ron's shoulder, almost crashed into the rock chair. "Does anyone know where the Belfry of Vale is?"

"Don't go to the Belfry!" said Lawrence, sounding horror-struck, "No one ever comes out of there alive!"

"Good," said Hermione icily, "You can come with us and go in first, then."

"Actually, no one ever gets in there in the first place."

"Have _you_ tried to find it? No? I didn't think so! So how, then, do you know that? Really," she huffed, "People and their ludicrous, unsubstantiated opinions and delusions of grand travel! It makes my stomach roil! No wonder the Galaxy's going to the pirates!"

"Hey!" Harry protested.

"It's a phrase, Harry, I don't mean it personally," said Hermione, smiling at him.

Harry sighed and shook his head in the manner of a doctor pitying a hopeless mental patient. He was torn between a desire to command Hermione to behave herself and a desire to watch the remnants of the scene play out. Like the true, wicked-spirited pirate he was, he opted for the latter.

"Now," said Hermione, in a voice so threatening that Harry could have sworn the rock beneath them trembled. "Where is this Belfry?"

"Turn right at the rock statue of the Galactic Councilor's Settee," said the bearded man in a dazed sort of voice. "It's across the Green Lagoon about a mile away."

Hermione huffed with what might have been satisfaction. After a moment's contemplation, she looked triumphantly at Harry. "Well! It looks like we won't have to search the entire planet after all."

"Yeah," said Harry very dryly, "Thanks so much." He stayed long enough to thank the settlement folk for their kind hospitality, before he bolted after Hermione, Ron, and a half-awake Luna. He had to run particularly fast to make sure Hermione didn't leap into the driver's seat, which, in her present mood, would almost definitely be the end of him.

"Honestly," said Hermione angrily, once they were zipping away towards the Green Lagoon, "They say they care! They were trying to get to Grimmauld to give me a dewdrop necklace! A _necklace_, Harry! Before they planned on leaving again, mind you! And they say they care!"

Harry made sympathetic noises. "Hermione, you're so prickly and suspicious that you _do_ make it very hard for people to stick around sometimes, you know."

Hermione stared at him for a moment with wide eyes that reminded him of a wounded puppy. Then she looked away, and said nothing, but she was so silent that Harry immediately felt awful.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I didn't mean to—I really didn't mean that—"

He did not finish the sentence.

They were skimming lightly over the Green Lagoon, and as they all looked into the depths of the clear blue water (the lagoon's name was clearly an inexplicable phenomenon), they found themselves staring at a number of infinitely beautiful faces—Mermaids, thought Hermione intelligently, or Sirens—gazing up at them from below the water. They were smiling.

Hermione glanced at each of her three companions. Harry looked faintly puzzled, as though he wasn't quite sure what was happening. Ron was climbing over the edge of the seat, all ready to leap into the water and join the Mermaids, and only Luna's arms around his metallic waist held him back. Hermione lunged forward to grab the steering wheel and find a way to put the deerglider into Hover-Pause. Harry had released the controls entirely and was now leaning frighteningly far out over the edge of the deerglider.

"They're beautiful," he breathed blissfully.

Hermione scowled. "They're passable, Harry, there's no need to behave so foolishly."

He blinked once or twice, as though her voice was beginning to exercise an influence over him. However, the singing of the Mermaid Sirens seemed to have dulled his senses.

Hermione found the right button on the control panel, and punched it. She nearly flew across the entire length of the two front seats to grab the back of Harry's shirt and pull him back. "Harry!" she shrieked. "Stop it! They're Mermaids, Harry, you _can't_ copulate with them anyway! HARRY! They'll kill you if you go down there with them!"

"Let—go!" he breathed, "I want—to—go—"

"HARRY, WAKE UP!"

"Hermione," said Luna, in a voice far more down-to-earth than any she had used so far in Hermione's presence, "I don't think we're going to get out of this. I can restrain Ronald, but I fear I won't be able to help you with Harry… oh, dear…"

Hermione cursed very violently and colorfully under her breath. Ron was now slumped against Luna and appeared to have contented himself with staring dreamily at the Mermaid's beautiful, smiling faces and waving, slender hands. Harry, on the other hand, had broken free of Hermione's hold and had thrown himself right out of the deerglider with all the grace of a paralyzed sloth. The scaly, eerily green arms of the Mermaids pulled him deeper.

"The man owes me overtime and medical insurance for this insanity," Hermione muttered, and, without a second thought, tossed off her shoes and leapt into the Lagoon right after Harry and the Mermaids.

Behind her, she could have sworn she heard Luna cry out in alarm, as though fearful of not only Harry's safety, but Hermione's as well.

The water, Hermione realized immediately, was not normal. She wasn't sure it was even really water. It felt like the lightest of material, sort of like floating eerily through yards of somebody's silk dress. Hermione flapped about aimlessly for a moment before realizing that all she really had to do to move was stride forcefully against the water. She propelled herself downward towards Harry and the Mermaids, and realized she could breathe perfectly normally. She found the entire experience altogether too disconcerting for her liking.

She lunged out and managed to grab hold of Harry's ankle. Tugging hard, she yelled out his name again. She heard no sound but thought the message rippled along anyway. Harry floated upwards towards her. Before the Mermaids swarmed towards them and seized him again, she caught a glimpse of his expression: he looked like a sleeping baby.

Two of the ambushing Mermaids twisted Hermione's hand away from his ankle, and hissed nastily at her. Their expressions spoke a thousand words, but only five were necessary: _Get out or you're dead_. Hermione plunged a hand into her pocket, searching for the Speed Stunner, only to find that it had fallen out when she had leapt into the water. It the distance, she could see it, a black shape roaming idly through the unnatural substance they were in. It was too far to go after.

"Get off him!" she snapped at the nearest Mermaid. A crackle of electricity sprang between Hermione's Electro-Bracelets, and the Mermaids let out hair-raising shrieks.

They promptly bolted from sight. Hermione seized a tight hold on Harry's shirt. A lingering Mermaid tried to wrap her cold, slimy fingers around her neck, and Hermione, choked off from the water she was breathing, did the only thing she could: she pulled Harry's Deflector Handgun out of his belt. She flipped the switch to 'Stun life form for at least a week', and fired.

The remaining mobile Mermaids scattered.

Hermione shoved the gun back into Harry's belt, grabbed him under the arms, and began the peculiar march back to the surface. She was sorely tempted to clunk him painfully on the head with his Handgun as well, or give him a bit of an electric shock in sensitive areas. However, she was still trying to work out why she had just plunged into icy silk and risked death and torture at the hands of beautiful and sadistic water-women for this wretched man.

They emerged out of the water with an undignified splash, and Hermione dragged Harry to the nearest rocky bank. She then hauled herself out, dripping wet and suddenly very cold, and her teeth chattered out vile curses and insults. She pulled him onto the rock beside her.

"Harry!" she shouted. "Harry? HARRY POTTER! Wake up! I'm not about to give you mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, if that's what you're waiting for!"

There was absolutely no response.

Hermione was exasperated. "You have _got_ to be joking," she said indignantly. "Demanding, aren't you? Harry, don't you _dare_ die on me!"

Growing seriously afraid, Hermione decided that she could deal with the repercussions of her conscience later on. So she crouched down beside him, closed her eyes, and bent her mouth down to his. Her lips touched his, and they warm and dry and Hermione shivered internally, shaken by how right it felt. Difficult, painful, and probably a mistake… but _right_.

Harry's eyes flew open, shock and amazement stamped across their green depths. Hermione jerked back, flushing to the roots of her hair. He swallowed hard, his throat working, and he seemed unable to speak for a moment.

"Well?" said Hermione a little breathlessly, seeking a light response. "Don't you owe me a thank you for saving your life?"

"Thank you," said Harry obediently, "Though I think that kiss saved my life more than your swimming did."

"I," said Hermione in a voice of rage, "Am. Going. To. Murder. You."

Harry grinned.

"You're going to _pay_ me for saving your life, Mr. Potter," said Hermione angrily. "Don't imagine for a moment that I did it out of the goodness of my heart, because it isn't. Good, I mean. It's a mercenary, nasty, and entirely non-existent heart."

"Thank you, Hermione," said Harry with a heart-stopping smile. He kissed her on the top of her wet head, and then got to his feet, leaving her kneeling on the rock with an expression of thunderstruck shock on her face. When she finally managed to stand up, she found him staring at something behind her with a mildly amused expression.

She turned to find Ron standing beside the deerglider, clutching Luna with an expression of absolute horror and incredulity. The three-legged girl smiled serenely upon him and shepherded him gently towards the backseat of the glider. With a huff, Hermione walked over to them and asked Harry in a voice of icy dignity: "Are we going or not?"

"By all means," drawled Harry, opening the passenger door for them all to get in, "Let's be on our way. I just thought you might have wanted a kissing break."

Hermione made a growling sound deep in her throat, and wished she had left him to the mercy and machinations of the Mermaids. Odds were, they would probably have spat him right out of the Lagoon within four minutes of making his acquaintance.

The Belfry of Vale was (shockingly enough) made out of rock. It was a tall and imposing structure tucked behind another cliff face not far beyond the Settee statue, which was an item of interest on its own. Completely concealed from view unless you were right in front of it or in the vicinity, it looked to conceal a monstrous amount of space within, space they would probably have to scour before they came upon the chamber pot of everyone's dreams. Rather dismally, Hermione followed the others to the arched steel doorway to one side.

"How does one enter?" she inquired.

Harry snorted. "Ring the doorbell and stroll in, I suppose," he said sarcastically.

"Very well," said Ron cheerfully, and promptly pressed the shining button beside the door. The bells at the very top of the belfry rang ominously, and both Harry and Hermione covered their ears with their hands.

"My, isn't he brilliant," Hermione commented archly.

"Aren't I? My IQ is—"

"Thanks, Ron," said Harry quickly.

At that moment, there was a buzzing sound, and a robotic voice echoed out of the little shining button Ron had just pressed. "You rang?" it asked rudely.

"No," said Harry.

There was a pause. "Don't try to be funny," said the voice nastily.

"Who's being funny? I didn't ring—the droid did."

"Who're you?"

"Harry Potter. Who're _you_?"

"The program designated to control the machinery of this Belfry. What do you want?"

"To find the Heart's Desire. What do _you_ want?"

"Very funny," said the voice, sounding very irritated. "I don't let pirates and mercenaries in! Especially not the ones who need a _toilet_ to tell them what their heart's desire is."

Hermione covered her mouth to stifle her giggles. Harry gave her a very dry look, and said: "One more giggle, Hermione, and we'll see who gets left behind with her parents when the rest of us take off." Turning back to the doorway, he kicked it and swore. "How the hell do we get in?" He looked at Ron and, almost reluctantly, at Hermione. "Do you have any ideas?"

Hermione almost felt sorry for him. She had learned, by now, just how badly he wanted to find the Heart's Desire.

"We'll find a way in," she said kindly, "I'm sure we will."

"When?" he said sadly. "Next year?"

"We could climb in from the bell-room at the top—"

She stopped speaking as she watched Luna stroll vaguely up to the doorbell, and press it again. The voice returned:

"Yes?"

"Excuse me," said Luna in her vaguest, dreamiest and politest voice, shifting from one leg to the middle and to the last one before starting from the first all over again, "But do you think I could use your loo? Your bathroom, I mean? It's rather urgent."

"Yes, all right, come in," said the voice in an exasperated tone, "You shouldn't find it too hard to find."

The door slid open smoothly, revealing a long, electric flame-torch-lit passage.

Harry and Hermione's mouths fell open.

…

…

…

**TBC**.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: **Standard disclaimers apply.

**Summary: **AU/AU. Harry Potter is looking for The Heart's Desire. But it's a little difficult to do that when Ron's a droid with a superiority complex, Luna's accidentally given herself an extra limb, the Galactic Aurors are trying to hunt him down, and—worst of all—there's Hermione, a nuisance and distraction that Harry really can't afford to put up with…

…

…

…

_**His Heart's Desire**_

**Chapter Four**

…

…

…

…

"Can I go in first, Harry?" inquired Luna, "It's just that it really is urgent."

"Go ahead," said Harry, sounding stunned.

As Luna entered the belfry and disappeared down the passageway, Harry and Hermione began to follow. They stopped, however, because Ron tapped Harry lightly on the shoulder. He stared at something over their shoulders. "If I had been in charge of this operation," he said rudely, "We would never have had this problem."

Harry and Hermione turned around, and found a man standing not far behind them, his Speed Stunner trained on them and a very mean grin on his face.

"Afternoon," he said nastily. "Now let's have your weapons on the ground."

Hermione was speechless. It was a historic event.

"Who the hell are you?" asked Harry, scowling.

"Let's not push the envelope, Captain, get your Handgun on the ground."

"What for?"

"Because I'm going to shoot you if you don't, Mr Potter, so would you be so kind as to speed it up? I'd rather not kill you, to be very honest. The Aurors are going to pay me a huge price to deliver the two of you – oh, and the weird Metamorphodroid – to them."

"Who are you? Some common bounty hunter?"

"That's 'sir' to you, Potter."

Harry uttered a short bark of a laugh. "Look, if you think I've got the patience to call any man 'sir' who holds me up at Stunner-point, then you've obviously done your research very badly. Now who are you?"

"All right. I'll humor you. I only need to keep you here until the Aurors arrive, so I s'pose I have time to waste. I'm a Secret Spy for the government, one of the elite services, commanded by the Prime Minister. I'm Mania. Rabid Mania."

"We can see that," said Hermione at last, "What's your name, though?"

"Another word out of you, Miss Clever, and I'll shoot your tongue right off."

Harry felt a prickle of anger and his jaw muscle flickered dangerously again. Insulting and threatening Hermione, he thought, was pushing it.

Nervously, Ron asked: "What do we do, Harry? Shall I concoct a brilliant solution for us, or will we be obliged to rely on some half-baked human plan?"

"It amazes me more and more than you've actually restrained yourself from dismantling him," said Hermione, jerking her thumb at Ron. She turned her glare to Rabid Mania, who was leaning against his Nimbus Two Thousand and One and looking as pleased as if he had been on top of the Galaxy. She was beginning to wonder how in the world they were going to escape the Secret Spy when he had a drawn weapon and was very plainly trigger-happy.

"Weapons," Mania repeated with another nasty grin.

Hermione looked at Harry. He simply shrugged slightly. He pulled out his Deflector Handgun and tossed it onto the ground a few feet in front of him.

"Excellent," said Mania, "Glad we're cooperating at last. I really didn't want to hurt you."

"Terribly noble of you," Hermione muttered.

"Let's have those spiked bracelets off too, Granger."

Hermione ground her teeth. "Over my dead body!"

"I can arrange that."

Harry looked at Hermione. "Take them off," he said quickly, "We'll find another way out of this, all right?"

"Harry, you may be master of the _Dirty Deed_, but you aren't mine. I don't take orders from anyone, including that jumped-up mercenary over there. He thinks he's something special, but I've bumped into many of his kind. They always seem to think they've seen through my cons."

"Watch your mouth, Granger," snarled the Secret Spy, a very ugly look crossing his face.

"There! See?" Hermione said, completely ignoring him and addressing herself solely to Harry. "Have you ever heard anything more unoriginal? You'd think the Prime Minister would at least give them a few new ideas instead of giving them a script to read off. Scenario A's response: 'watch your mouth'. Scenario B's response: 'One more word, Granger, and you're…'"

"One more word, Granger, and you're – oh, _damn_ it!"

Hermione shook her head sympathetically. "It's a terrible life, isn't it?"

Harry leaned back against a nearby rock and crossed his arms over his chest. He was enjoying himself immensely. It was very entertaining indeed when Hermione was browbeating someone else, and Harry could think of no one who more deserved to be driven absolutely bananas than this brazen bounty hunter.

He then noticed a movement over Mania's shoulder. To his enormous amusement and mild surprise, he observed Lawrence and Jane Granger creeping along the rock towards them. They saw Mania; they saw Mania's weapon; and they saw that their only daughter was being held up by said weapon (although she seemed to feel absolutely no dismay at this circumstance). Harry later assumed that the logical thing for a parent to do in such a situation was precisely what Lawrence Granger did: he picked up a loose rock from the ground, marched forward awkwardly, and crisply clouted Mania over the head.

Mania went down like a sack of wet cement. Harry waited for him to lie slumped and still; he looked alive but unconscious. Then Harry idly scooped up his weapon and Mania's, entirely unperturbed by the entire episode. He then looked at Hermione, and was, funnily enough, not at all surprised by the fact that she didn't look happy at all.

"What are _you_ two doing here?" she demanded in a voice that rivaled that of Harry's ship's freezer.

Her parents looked at each other, suddenly wrong-footed by their daughter. "We thought we ought to come after you," Lawrence said finally, awkwardly shifting his weight, "We were afraid—we thought you might actually find a way into the Belfry and that you wouldn't ever come back. So we wanted to—"

"We thought we'd try to… help," said Jane very uneasily.

"Help?" Hermione now sounded much more like the Vegetable-Cutter. "You're about eighteen years too late to help!"

"Actually," Harry interrupted, looking from one to the other, "They _can_ help."

"Exactly what I—_what_?"

"Well," said Harry, leaning against a rock casually, "Mania here just told us that the Aurors are after us. Now, obviously, assuming they realize we're on Vale, they can't get to us because you can only reach Vale by accident. But I have no doubt that they'll be monitoring Star-patrol very carefully, waiting for a message from the _Dirty Deed_. The instant my ship's coordinates send a request revealing where we want to exit hyperspace into, they'll have Nimbus ships waiting for us. Chances of escaping at that point will be remote, and the only other alternative is to not send a request to Star-Patrol at all."

"A mistake that would probably, since you won't put me in charge, take us into collision with a Galactic Ex freeway truck!" Ron apparently couldn't resist putting in.

Harry ignored him. "We do tend to have bad luck. My point is: our only reasonable option is to break into Star-patrol—"

"Oh, of course. Very reasonable indeed. Why didn't _I_ think of it?"

"_Listen_, Hermione. We break into Star-patrol and scramble any message coming in from our ship before it reaches, so that nobody can read it except for the scrambler. Then send an affirmative or a negative in unscrambled form. Nobody will ever know, and we can get out of there before the Aurors finds out who did the hanky-panky."

"Why do we need _them_ for this new bit of madness?" demanded Hermione, pointing at her parents in the manner of one pointing at bugs.

Harry grinned. "Well," he said, looking at the two older Grangers, "Didn't you say you scrambled and unscrambled special disturbances for a living?"

"Well, we _used_ to before we got stuck here—"

"I could probably still do it," said Jane, apparently catching on to what Harry had in mind. "Scrambling codes in Star-patrol will be no easy task, but if I had access to all the equipment—"

"You will. You and Ron will be going."

"I _knew_ it," said the Metamorphodroid unhappily.

"Ron can morph into a Star-patrol employee and gain full access."

Ron's expressionless face turned to Harry. "How do we do this, if the _Dirty Deed_ stays here?"

"Mania," said Harry, nudging the bounty hunter's prone form with his toe, "Had to have latched onto us and gotten here in a Nimbus. No other small ship can cross Interspacial distances. You both can find it—it must be nearby—and set out. No one will bother keeping a watch on Mania's vehicle, and if they do, it won't send out alarm bells. You should have no trouble." He smiled, looking, Hermione thought, a little surprised at his own quick thinking.

Jane stammered: "But – but how will we get back?"

"Two Thousand and Ones are pretty small, so they can hook themselves virtually to a large mother ship, like a Firebolt, to keep from getting lost in hyperspace. If you hook it to the _Dirty Deed_, I think we'll be able to reel you back here. Even through the barrier around Vale. If, for some reason, it doesn't work, then I guess you can just wait there for us to pick you up."

"It hasn't even occurred to you, has it, that _she_ may not agree to this scheme at all?" Hermione said angrily, eyes narrowed. "What if she refuses?"

"Will she refuse," Harry remarked, smiling, "Knowing that her only daughter's freedom may depend on this? After all, they did mention that they wanted to help."

Hermione stiffened.

"But—" Jane said, looking pale, "But I love it here—we both do—if somehow, we can never get back—" her gaze settled on Hermione's face, and she was silent for a moment. Harry thought he could count the seconds down in his head before the answer he was expecting arrived. Five, four, three, two…

"All right. I'll help you. I'll go with the droid."

"Excellent," grinned Harry, almost laughing aloud at the dumbstruck look on Hermione's face as she stared at her mother, "If there's any problem, we'll bring Lawrence out so that you can at least be together."

"Very kind of you, Mr Potter. But do you think you could tell me where _I'll _be while this droid and my wife are off breaking into Star-patrol?" Lawrence sounded indignant, as if he didn't appreciate some random pirate taking control of his life and his family.

Harry folded his arms across his chest. "Yes, I could. You'll be in my ship, monitoring the connection to the Two Thousand and One. Your daughter will probably be there with you—"

Hermione did not make the protest one would have expected. Harry suspected she hadn't heard a word of what he'd said; she was staring at her parents as if she was seeing them for the first time (again). Harry, already foreseeing the bond that could grow between them, couldn't help feeling like he had finally done something worthwhile. Good deeds once in a while, he thought, were okay. Particularly if they also (but this was a secondary consideration!) helped him avoid the irritatingly persistent Galactic Aurors.

"Fine, Harry," said Ron, sounding as if he was ready for his body's meltdown, "We'll go then, shall we? Mrs. Granger?"

Jane threw her daughter one last look, then one at her hapless husband. He shrugged, and said, "Well, it _has_ been a long time since we've had something intellectually stimulating to do!" In response to this, his wife laughed and looked considerably happier about the entire thing. Harry was beginning to see the family resemblances.

He reached into Ron's inner compartment and began taking things out and stuffing them into pockets and belt nooks.

"Where are _you_ going to be?" Lawrence demanded of Harry, before following his wife and Ron off.

"_I'm_ going after the Heart's Desire."

"I'm coming with you!" said Hermione at once, apparently jolted back to reality.

"Are you?" said Harry quietly, looking at her. "I thought you'd just gotten what you've always wanted. Surely you don't want something _more_?"

Hermione scowled at him. "For your information," she said, through gritted teeth, "I thought I'd come with you to keep you out of any more trouble, but if you prefer to see it some other way, don't let me stop you!"

Harry was taken aback. "Oh."

"Tongue-tied, Harry?" said Hermione coldly, as her parents vanished from view. "How awful. I'll miss your friendly conversation terribly."

"Look, why don't you just go and keep Luna company—good grief! _Luna_ I forgot about her completely! We have to find her! I can't let her find the Heart's Desire before me! My pride will never stomach it! Hermione," He seized her hand and turned towards the belfry. "Come on. We can leave this idiot here."

Hermione glanced back once at Rabid Mania, and then followed Harry into the still-open doorway of the belfry. The torch-lit passage beyond was like something out of an archaic fantasy novel, and Hermione surveyed her surroundings in fascination. The last of the sunlight disappeared as the belfry door slid to a close with a hiss. Hermione had the sudden sensation that she was going to be stuck here forever with Harry Potter. The idea of it did not, to her horror, horrify her as much as she had thought it would.

The first room they entered was beautiful, a massive and round room with a vast gleaming black pool in the middle. The pool had a thin steel pillar sticking out of its center. The interior of the rock was covered in what looked like the most perfect crystal. Hermione could see thousands of distorted reflections staring back at them. She was awestruck.

"Harry," she said in a hushed voice, "If you're so determined to get wealthy, why don't you forget the Heart's Desire and chisel off a few truckloads of crystal instead?"

Harry raised his eyebrows. "Oh, help yourself. I'm still going to find The Heart's Desire. Once I have it and use it and then sell it, I can come back here and get the crystal if I want."

"_We_," snarled Hermione.

"I'm sorry, what was that, Hermione?"

Hermione tried to resist the urge to push him into the black pool. She failed.

She grabbed the back of his shirt and thrust him headfirst into the pool. He let out a yell, and fell into the black water with a colossal splash. After a very long moment, his head reappeared and he blinked water out of his eyes, staring at her in astonishment. She continued to glare.

"And I hope there are Mermaids there who will _murder_ you and save me the trouble," said Hermione in despair.

Harry stared at her. "You think that was funny, do you?"

"Well, yes, actually. What are you going to do about it?"

His expression changed; he grinned. "Why, I'm going to thank you, of course. If my guess is correct—"

"Impossible," said Hermione.

"—You just showed me the way to the Heart's Desire!"

Hermione, dumbfounded, stared at him as he promptly disappeared under the water's surface. She let out an enraged moan and dived without thought into the water. This, she discovered, was real water and terribly cold. She gasped and spluttered for a bit, before opening her eyes to see that there was perfect visibility here. She watched as Harry swam downward to what looked like a switch at the bottom of the pool. She shrieked out his name, convinced that he was about to make a mistake fatal to them both. Water flooded her mouth, and she spluttered futilely. Harry, in the meanwhile, flipped the switch.

There was a huge whooshing sound, and a whirlpool began to suck them downward. Hermione seized the steel pillar and wrapped her legs around it firmly. Below her, Harry had done the same. The water drained with a gush out of tiny holes in the bottom of the pool until the space was completely empty.

Hermione's mind was spinning. Too many things were happening at once.

She slid down the pillar, shivering, and almost knocked Harry flat onto his back. Frowning, he regained his balance and opened his mouth to say something. He fell silent, however, as tiny slits opened up in the smooth pool walls and expelled blasts of hot air. Within a moment, they were bone-dry.

"How obliging," said Harry with a grin, "Maybe the control-program likes us after all."

"Don't flatter yourself," the irate program's voice said, echoing around them, "_I_ don't control the pre-arranged mechanics. Believe me, if I did, you'd find yourself missing certain bits of your—"

"Point taken," said Harry, wincing.

Hermione looked around the empty space and found a small door in the wall. She went across and tapped a button on the panel beside it. A red light flashed. "All right," she murmured, "Now what?"

The belfry program gave a rude giggle. "Didn't think it would be so easy, did you?"

"What do we have to do?" demanded Hermione.

"What I want to know," said Harry, "Is where the hell Luna got to."

"She's in there," chuckled the program, "She got through pretty quickly too. An odd girl, but she's got brains where it counts."

Harry looked like he might explode. "_How do we get in_?" he growled.

"Say the magic word."

"Which era do _you_ come from?" snapped Hermione, "Nobody believes in magic anymore!"

"Well, you'd better believe in it, missy. You're not getting anywhere otherwise! Now say the magic word. Your friend didn't even _need_ me to ask."

Hermione could almost imagine the program rubbing its hands (if it had had any) together gleefully. She looked at Harry, and saw an expression on his face that probably mirrored hers to perfection. They both knew, or thought they knew, what the magic word was. It was typically evil. Unfortunately, neither of them could imagine saying it now. It just went against all principle.

"Erm…" said Hermione slowly, "I think we have a difficult choice here."

Harry nodded, clearly so dismayed that he forgot to argue. "Option One: turn away from the discovery and find of our dreams, and the chance to be the greatest pirate and con-artist in the history of the Galaxy. Option Two: sacrifice our pride forever."

Before Hermione could say anything in response, there was a whistling sound and a beam of green light struck the wall just beside her. She let out a shriek, startled, and Harry seized her and dragged her sideways. They both looked up to see a very angry-looking Rabid Mania standing above the pool and shooting at them with a small Handgun. Hermione wished for the millionth time that her bracelets were long-range. She also fought the urge to shout at Harry for not remembering to search the man for more weapons. As a pirate, he was hopelessly incompetent.

"Better add 'imminent demise' to Option One," she said dryly.

They exchanged glances. "Better do it," said Harry, sounding as if he was being physically wounded.

"All right," said Hermione, swallowing hard. "Together?"

"Yeah."

They turned to the little door, ducking out of the way of another beam of light. "_Please_," they said together.

With a hiss, the door slid open. The program made a crowing sound.

"We _never_ talk about this again," Hermione warned Harry, and ducked through the door.

As the door slid shut, they heard the gushing sound of water filling the pool once more. Hermione assumed they had some time, at least, before Mania caught up with them. They turned toward the room they had just entered, and were met with a surprising sight.

Luna was sitting in an armchair to one side of the room, eating grapes. On the other side of the room was a long line of aliens and droids and not-quite-humans of various kinds. Hermione identified at least six different planetalities (the wider version of 'nationalities'). The line led up to a regular-looking bathroom stall. Hermione felt her heart skip a beat. Inside that stall had to be the Heart's Desire. They were only inches away from what they'd been seeking for well over… well, for just over a day, but it was the thought that counted.

"Wow," breathed Harry, "We're actually here."

"I didn't know so many people would be here," Hermione said, frowning, "Something's got to be wrong."

"Don't spoil the mood with pessimism," said Harry, grinning, "We're about to get the Heart's Desire!"

The voice of the program intruded into their conversation: "You'll have to wait in the queue. Anyone wanting to use the bathroom has to."

"Yeah, OK," said Harry, shrugging. "What's a half an hour or so anyway?"

Hermione felt doubtful. "That's a _long_ line," she said.

"Well, go eat grapes with Luna, then."

Stubbornly, Hermione did not take him up on this very tempting offer, but instead followed him to the back of the line. She began to shift restlessly within seconds of finding position and elicited several haughty stares from two aliens with fancy handbags. Beside her, Harry was still bobbing up and down with badly suppressed excitement. After a moment or two, he turned around and yelled out to Luna:

"Luna, what're you doing over there? Didn't you need to use the bathroom?"

Luna waved. "Oh, hi, Harry. No, the feeling passed. These are lovely grapes, though. Would you like one?"

Minutes passed. Hours might have passed, because Hermione completely lost track of time. The excitement flooding through Harry had apparently receded, because his scowl was back and he was taking tiny steps backward and forward. No one had joined the queue behind them, and the line just didn't seem to be getting any shorter. Hermione had walked away twice to get oranges and grapes from Luna, but her temper was rapidly becoming frayed. As soon as they got out of here, she was going to banish Harry Potter to the sixth moon of some cold planet on the other end of the Galaxy. The man had caused nothing but trouble for her.

He verified this opinion only moments later. Apparently fed up with the waiting, Harry pulled his Handgun from his belt, leaned out of the line, and fired his mildest shot at the person at the very front of the line. He stepped back, looking slightly guilty, to observe the effect he had had. The alien keeled over with a grunt. The only sound was the echoing thud of his form hitting the floor.

The remaining aliens and droids, some thirty of them, immediately turned and formed a circle around Hermione and Harry. The swiftness with which they accomplished this made Hermione feel perversely triumphant that she had been right: something had been wrong with the whole thing. The creatures were glaring at them menacingly. They were suddenly armed with very formidable-looking weapons. The two who had been in front of Harry and Hermione ripped cow-sized Quick-Draw Light Pistols from their handbags and trained them immediately on the pirate and the con-artist. Hermione, forgetting triumph, glanced down at her spiked bracelets and bare hands. She couldn't help feeling rather alarmed.

One stray alien went to a boom box in the corner, and began to play rock music.

Aliens, thought Hermione, had a terrible sense of humor.

…

…

…

While the mayhem in the Belfry of Vale ensued, there was potential for greater chaos elsewhere. Ron Weasley and Jane Granger were walking through the corridors of Star-patrol.

They had parked the Nimbus in the Star-patrol port, and had entered. Within seconds of walking in, Ron had knocked out and immediately impersonated a passing official in upper-rank uniform. They took the man's entrance Firekey, and marched along after dumping him into a broom closet ("how clichéd," said Jane). Whenever anybody they passed shot Jane inquiring looks, she introduced herself as her companion's lovechild.

Soon, the Metamorphodroid and professional scrambler were ensconced in the official's private office, with access to an array of equipment that boggled Jane's mind. She felt a nostalgic fondness for the technology of ten years before. She sat down at the wide-screen panels and examined the various codes and buttons displayed. Typing a few keys quickly, she thought she could understand the way Star-patrol's monitoring program worked. She set the central computer onto 'sleep' so that she could work manually. Ron passed the fingerprint analysis barrier and they were given access to the records. It took Jane only moments to find Harry's ship—ID 76359. It had, as they'd suspected, been flagged as important and worthy of necessitating instant communication with the Aurors. She began to set about decoding the particular cryptogram applied to that one ID number. Once she had that decoded, she thought, it wouldn't be very difficult to scramble any incoming messages so that the Aurors, receiving the transmission immediately, wouldn't be able to understand the message at all.

"Can't you do this a little quicker?" Ron demanded, his faux-elderly face looking impatient. "Really, if only humans were gifted with the speed and efficiency levels so common in Metamorpho—"

"Would _you_ like to do this?" asked Jane mildly.

Ron crossed his false arms over the official's chest. "If I can't, it's only because I was not programmed well enough by my _human_ manufacturer. Once again, humans prove themselves so hopelessly susceptible to mistakes and so—"

"So very human?"

"Yeah, exactly," said Ron in a tone of mild disgust.

Jane rather thought Metamorphodroids were perhaps also not programmed to understand subtext or sarcasm. She continued the decoding process, and finally managed to crack the cryptogram. With a cry of triumph, she stood up and went to the set of microchips across the room to find a manual that would tell her exactly how incoming messages were transcribed at present.

Ron obviously considered the entire slow, methodical process a waste of time and worthy of nothing but his contempt. This, Jane decided later, might have been what led him to march up to the panel she had just been working at, and examine it critically. "Why not just remove the tag marking Harry's ship?" he said loftily. "That way, there won't be an alert when the ship sends out a sphere."

"Ron!" Jane spun around, horrified, as Ron's fingers moved to the keys. "No, Ron, the tag is programmed by the central computer and I've put it to sleep! If you try to access its functions without the password or the right command, there's no telling what might—"

She trailed off, speechless, as Ron tapped the keys quickly. There was a loud beep, and the entire office began to shake. Jane stumbled across to the panel to correct the damage. The office offered them a panoramic view of space, and as they watched, everything seemed to tremble just slightly. She gasped, and stared back at the screen frantically.

"Ron, what did you do?"

When she determined what he had done by the codes appearing on the screen, she slapped her hand to her forehead.

"Well," said Ron in a superior voice, "I personally think this is a far better option."

Jane seized his collar and said in a high-pitched voice:

"If we get out of here _right now_, we just might be able to escape getting caught in this disaster!"

…

…

…

The belfry program laughed in a very sinister manner. "Oh, I _have_ been waiting for this," it told them with relish.

"Right," said Harry with the expression of one unsure whether to be afraid or to enjoy himself. His Handgun and a Speed Stunner were in his hands. He added, as an afterthought: "Get ready for combat."

"_Combat_?" demanded Hermione. "I'm not a soldier!"

"You should have come prepared."

"Oh, I'm _sorry_!" she said indignantly. "But I seem to have forgotten my sword!"

With an exasperated sound, Harry tossed her the Speed Stunner and ripped another one out of his pocket. Hermione looked at the Stunner and at the circle of faces all around them. A green alien with twenty eyes fired his weapon at her feet and she took an uneasy step back. There was even a Malevolent Butterfully (a butterfly with human legs) in the group.

"What's the battle strategy, general?" Hermione inquired pleasantly.

"Just fire anywhere you want to—except at me," he added hastily, catching the gleam in her eyes.

Several things happened at once. Harry began to fire randomly at the circle, taking down several. The ones still standing immediately fired back, completely ignoring Hermione. Harry threw on the Handgun's shield function to keep from getting hit, and seemed to forget about her as well. Hermione threw her Speed Stunner aside and threw herself at the nearest droid and began to kick him repeatedly in his metal stomach. The world turned upside-down as she found herself wriggling and wrestling her way through a group of berserk creatures. Her bracelets had never been of greater use. Anyone so much as touching her arms received an electric shock that had them flat on their backs, reduced to asking the ceiling whether it was their mother.

And Luna, clear of the brawl, began to sing along to "Welcome to my Bachelor Party" (an old rock classic).

Hermione broke free of her wrestling match, having created a reproduction of the pub on Garvage by inducing the aliens to fight each other, believing they were beating her up. She caught sight of Harry. A huge hairy alien, obviously from the desolate planet Malfoy, had wrapped its arms around him from behind and was squeezing the life out of him.

She sprang onto the beast's back and clung to its shoulders. Harry's Handgun lay upright in his restrained arms, and she lunged for it and shoved the barrel up the alien's nose. She pulled the trigger.

With a grunt, the beast keeled over, and Hermione fell with him. She untangled herself from sweaty, smelly, hairy limbs and clambered to her feet. Harry fired with his remaining Stunner over Hermione's shoulder. She turned and saw one of the handbag-toting aliens fall.

"I've lost track," Harry said, looking as though he was having the time of his life, "How many did you get?"

"Many more than you did," she replied.

"Here's a good time to add some more points."

Hermione swiveled and saw the droids, extracting themselves from the brawl, coming towards them. She was growing heartily sick of this ridiculous fight. All for a chamber pot. _Not_ a story that she would ever tell her grandchildren.

But before the droids could take another step, something strange happened. They reached up and covered their ears, beginning to shake and screech in near-agony. The aliens still fighting each other began to do the same. Hermione and Harry watched, speechless, as the creatures all around them groaned and cried out as if they were being tortured. Then, one by one, they collapsed to the floor in malfunction or faint.

Hermione and Harry looked at each other. Then they looked at Luna. She was holding a whistle in one hand and blowing idly on it, apparently amusing herself quite contentedly.

"Luna!" Harry called.

Luna turned towards them. "Oh," she said, sounding mildly surprised at the sight of the floor covered with prone creatures, "What happened to them?"

"_You_ knocked them out! That whistle of yours—"

"Did I?" Luna appeared unmoved by this bit of news. She eyed her whistle. "Is that what this does, then?"

"What is it?" Hermione asked, picking up the fallen Speed Stunner.

"It's one of my scientific experiments. I modified the sound waves created by an ordinary whistle. Perhaps I've changed it so that it only affects non-humans. How interesting." Luna continued to survey her invention. Hermione didn't think she'd quite processed that she might have just saved both Harry and Hermione's lives.

Apparently feeling that he hadn't done enough to secure their victory, Harry fired at the boom box in the corner. The music died out.

"At last," said a voice from behind them. "You won't get away so easily this time."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Not again," she said with a groan.

"I'm afraid so, Granger. Now turn around, slowly, and put your hands up. Both of you. And the freak in the corner."

"Don't call her that!" Hermione said angrily.

She and Harry turned, slowly, as requested. Then, quite calmly, they both fired at the same time. Rabid Mania hadn't even had time to react. He crumpled, his own weapon falling to the ground. Hermione turned back to Harry without batting an eyelid. One did not fight through thirty aliens and droids (even if Luna put the threat to rest eventually) only to allow oneself to be defeated by a foolishly clingy Secret Spy.

"The Heart's Desire!" Harry suddenly said, his eyes lighting up once again. "It's ours at last."

They dashed towards the bathroom stall, and then both stopped. Harry's hand reached out for the doorknob. His hand was trembling slightly. Hermione nudged him gently, and he shot her a nervous look before seizing the knob and yanking the door open in one burst of energy. Together, they peered into the stall, and saw something they didn't expect.

It was empty.

"It's not here," said Harry blankly. "Where—where is it?"

Hermione looked around. "Where is it?" she called in a louder voice.

They heard the belfry program beginning to laugh. It was the mocking, amused laugh of someone enjoying themselves at somebody else's expense. A nasty feeling crept through Hermione, and she glanced at Harry, who was plainly panicking.

"But there's nowhere else to go. There were no other doorways. Is there a secret passage somewhere? Luna, is there a chamber pot behind that armchair? Is there an energy field deflecting light away from it?"

The program continued to laugh.

"The Heart's Desire—" Hermione said softly, "It—it doesn't exist, does it?"

"No," said the program triumphantly, adding an extra chortle for good measure. "Never did."

Harry felt like someone had just smacked him in the gut, kicked him in the head and then told him his mother was dead just for the fun of it. The dawning realization that the program wasn't lying, and that the Heart's Desire indeed didn't exist, was slow to set in. When it did, Harry was surprised by how little he felt. After years of hoping and after this entirely too painful quest, this was what he had gotten, and all he could think was '_I wonder if Hermione's going to kill me now_'.

He looked at her, expecting her to say, "I told you so". After all, for her, it had just been a day of hope. But instead, she was watching him with profound sympathy in her eyes. When she realized he was staring back, surprised at her expression, her features altered and she raised her eyebrows. "Not feeling too clever now?"

"No, not really," he replied.

Her face softened. "I'm sorry, Harry."

"Yeah, well…" Harry turned his head. "What's the point of all this?" he demanded of the central-program. "Why the Belfry and the myth?"

"You haven't worked it out yet, have you?" said the program in a disgusted voice. "Don't you realize the point of the quest? Oh, well. I suppose some thickheads always remain thickheads. Now, do you think you could all clear out so that I can wait for the next idiots in peace?"

"Yeah, we're going," said Harry irritably.

He jerked his head at Luna, who headed for the door. Harry looked down at Mania. "What do we do with him?" Hermione asked.

"We'll take him with us and drop him off in the Green Lagoon on our way. The Mermaids can have him."

When Harry, Hermione and Luna arrived outside the _Dirty Deed_ in the deerglider a couple of hours later, they found Lawrence and Jane Granger sitting on the bottom of the ramp with Ron standing idly nearby. Mania's Nimbus was parked nearby. The two Grangers looked very gloomy indeed. Harry got out of the hovercraft and marched towards them.

"Ron, what the hell are you doing back here?" he demanded. "Did you go to Star-patrol at all?"

"Yeah, we did," said Ron, sounding affronted, "And, I have to add, with some help from Mrs. Granger, I got a great deal done while we were at it, too—"

"Tell him the truth, Ron," Jane said, standing up.

Ron was silent, and then said, "Look, Harry, it would appear things did not quite happen as we had planned."

"In other words, you made a mess of things, didn't you?" said Hermione.

Jane cleared her throat and said cautiously: "Due to… um… certain errors in judgment, we managed to send out mass-disturbances through the astro-field. Since Star-patrol has a huge power supply, the disturbances were of great magnitude and have effectively scrambled the mobilization systems of all Interspacial ships, large and small. Ships mid-journey are probably frozen in place. Ships on land cannot take off. It was… erm… a bit of a disaster."

Hermione began to laugh helplessly. Harry frowned at her and then stared at her mother. "Does this mean we're stuck here?" he demanded.

"Oh, no," said Jane apologetically, "The Galaxy may have been thrown into chaos and Star-patrol's system may have been temporarily frozen, but Vale's unique barrier protected us from the effects. Your ship—and the Nimbus—are probably the only vehicles in the Galaxy capable of moving right now."

Harry was beginning to see what Hermione found so funny. "You mean, _we_ can do anything we want?" he said. "While the Aurors' and everybody else's ships are immobilized? For how long?"

"It's hard to say. Anywhere between a few more hours to a few days. No longer than that… I hope."

"Splendid," said Harry.

"On the bright side, Harry," said Ron happily, "I did skillfully erase the ship's ID number from the Star-patrol database."

"I'm so proud of you, Ron," said Harry, straight-faced.

…

…

…

**TBC**.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: **Standard disclaimers apply.

**Summary: **AU/AU. Harry Potter is looking for The Heart's Desire. But it's a little difficult to do that when Ron's a droid with a superiority complex, Luna's accidentally given herself an extra limb, the Galactic Aurors are trying to hunt him down, and—worst of all—there's Hermione, a nuisance and distraction that Harry really can't afford to put up with…

**A/N: **This is the final chapter of "The Heart's Desire"—it's very short, more of an epilogue, really. I'm sorry there wasn't more H/Hr romance in here, but it just didn't seem to fit. Anyway, enjoy this!

…

…

…

_**His Heart's Desire**_

**Chapter Five**

…

…

…

…

Harry stared at the people around him. Hermione watched him, knowing in her heart what he was about to say.

"So," he said, "We—er—we'd better get moving and get those Galleons from the Professor of Dumbledore, then. Now that we don't have the Heart's Desire, we'll have to stick to the old small game. Ron, could you go and start the engines. Luna, you're headed towards the water, the ship's the other way."

He turned to Hermione's parents, and said with a grin, "Thanks for all your help."

"It—well—we were glad to help," said Jane.

"Hermione…" Harry hesitated for the first time, looking uncertain. Hermione felt her insides clench. "We—er—we don't have much time, so I s'pose I'll say goodbye now. Now that you have your parents, I daresay you don't need us."

She stared at him, and then said with cold dignity, after a moment: "I daresay I don't. Goodbye, Harry. Don't get into too much trouble."

Harry smiled. "I'll send you your money, as promised." He turned, and strolled off towards the open ramp of his ship. There was a heaviness in his heart that he didn't think had anything to do with his failure to find the Heart's Desire.

He reflected later that he had also never had a harder time not looking back.

Once he entered his ship, he took a deep, steadying breath, ignored Luna's sympathetic stare, and gave Ron orders to take off as soon as the engines were ready and the shields up. He went immediately to the tool cupboard in the corner of the control room; he needed to see what he could do to temporarily fix his malfunctioning hyperspacial drive.

He held onto the cupboard door to steady himself as the ship lifted off the ground. Vale, he knew, was about to disappear completely from his life. The pirate's dream. He nearly laughed bitterly.

"Harry," he heard Ron call out to him from the control panel, his best friend's voice laced with doom, "I—er—think we have a stowaway."

Harry stiffened, his hand outstretched for a metal wrench. "_Don't_ tell me Rabid Mania's back!"

"Unfortunately not," said Ron gloomily, "This is much, _much_ worse."

"Harry, I'm going to need a room!"

Stunned into shock, Harry withdrew his head so fast from the cupboard that he banged it hard against the top. Rubbing a nasty lump growing on his head, he emerged to see Hermione standing not far away, her hands on her hips, watching him closely.

He straightened, maintained his calm with the utmost difficulty, and walked towards her. "What're you doing here?"

"You didn't think I was going to stay stranded on that planet with my _parents_, did you?"

"I left you the Nimbus."

"Oh." Hermione blinked. "Well, I don't care. I rather like it on your ship. Besides, I told you I didn't trust you to mail me my money."

Harry grinned. "We don't have a spare room."

"You could evict Ron from his. Or better yet, I could just share yours, couldn't I?" She looked innocently at him.

Ron's blue eyes were darting round in mad agitation. "Would you like me to forcibly eject her, Harry?" he asked hopefully.

"No, Ron," said Harry. "We're keeping this one."

He and Hermione walked to the wide window on the other end of the control room. They could see the star-studded space all around them, and far below, growing smaller, was the blue and gray planet Vale. Harry watched it turn into little more than a dot. The shining vision of the Heart's Desire and all that it could bring him receded into the distance as well. Disappointments were part of the pirate's life. Besides, he was going to have such fun watching other pirates continue their desperate search for the accidental planet.

"I'm sorry you didn't find your Heart's Desire," said Hermione quietly, the usual note of aloof dignity quite absent.

Harry turned away from the window and looked closely at her. She was, if you got past the dysfunctional personality issues, actually beginning to grow on him.

"You know," he said, a smile tugging at his mouth, "I think I _did_ find it."

…

…

…

**THE END.**

…

…

Whew. It's over. Alternate universe is definitely not for me.


End file.
